


The Human Figure

by kinkthatwinked



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Superman - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 69 (Sex Position), Anal Fingering, Anal Play, Anal Sex, Artist Steve Rogers, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Coming Out, Crossover, Deepthroating, First Time, First Time Blow Jobs, First Time Bottoming, First Time Topping, Internalized Homophobia, Kidnapping, Light Bondage, M/M, Masturbation, Rimming, supercap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2019-08-28 06:21:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 52,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16718007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinkthatwinked/pseuds/kinkthatwinked
Summary: A chance meeting between an art student and a figure drawing model grows into something more, but the student also happens to be a famous superhero with a secret, while the model closely guards an even bigger secret of his own.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ● I’ve set the date of Loki’s Chitauri invasion as May 4, 2012, the same day the movie _The Avengers_ premiered in America. This story begins in September of that same year. That time frame also means this story starts nearly a year before the movie _Man of Steel_. In fact, in this story the events of MoS never come to pass.  
> ● While this version of Steve Rogers comes almost exclusively from the movies, this version of Clark Kent is compiled from all the different takes on Superman I’ve read and seen over the years. To be honest, apart from looking like Henry Cavill, he may not resemble Zack Snyder’s Superman very much at all.  
>   
> Both banner artworks are by "millygal" (I wish I knew how to link to her name).  
> 

The moment Steve opened the classroom door, the combined scents of paper, charcoal, and gum erasers hit him, and for a moment it felt like no time had passed at all. Even back in his day, those smells meant shutting out all the worries pressing in on him – his lungs aching from the latest asthma attack, the bruises purpling and throbbing along his face, his stomach almost cramping with hunger – and getting lost in the drawing, giving all his focus to realizing an object on paper. He could only afford one year of art school back then, but he never forgot the sense of belonging, surrounded by others who’d been hit as hard by the need to create as he had. He began setting up his easel, getting a kick out of pulling the cellophane and plastic off each of his brand spanking new art supplies; he’d never had new stuff before. Maybe Romanoff was right, maybe this would be fun –

“Oh my fucking God, it’s _Captain America!_ ” The girl’s squeal probably turned heads at the end of the hallway, never mind reverberating throughout the classroom. The friendly chatter that had filled the room cut off as suddenly as if someone had hit the mute button on a television (which naturally took Steve back to the humiliating time he had to ask Stark for help finding the History Channel – the remote was almost as big as Steve’s forearm, and there were literally over a thousand channels!) Steve didn’t need to look at the students; he felt every head whip his way, every eye zoom in on his face.

“Can I take your picture?!” the girl asked, again at top volume, her phone already in her hand, her arm outstretched and inches from his face. Before he could say a word, the click of a camera shutter closing echoed in the silent room, because cell phone programmers thought simulating that sound would be cute, Steve supposed. The girl’s mouth dropped into an exaggerated ‘O’ of mortification, but her gleeful face gave her away. “Shit! Sorry! My finger just, I didn’t mean –” A student next to her snorted, and soon both the amateur photographer and her neighbor had collapsed into giggles.

Steve felt a half-smirk pull his lips as he continued setting up his workspace. Hardly the first time someone had stumbled over themselves in his presence, but he still hadn’t quite gotten used to it, the idea that someone would be that over the moon about meeting him. He was no stranger to celebrity, of course. He remembered the camera flashbulbs that blinded his eyes after every USO performance, the women from the audience that crowded into his space with their own giggles and smiles, dames whose eyes would have skated right over his head before the serum.

Steve also remembered the newsies back then may have asked the occasional saucy question or commented on the silly stage getup, but they mostly regarded him and his entertaining contribution to the war effort with respect. The memory stood in sharp contrast to his first press conference after the Battle of New York, reporters shoving recording devices under his nose, shouting questions that sounded more like demands, practically climbing over each other to get closer, as if physical proximity would yield more answers. The trauma played its role in that, of course, but underneath that burned an anger Steve had never seen in pressmen before. Something bitter and cynical overlaid the simple desire to get a story now, a determination to dig up some dirt: catch someone in a lie, uncover something ugly, prove the world was even more horrifying than it already seemed. Those reporters looked at Steve that day, decked out in his red, white, and blue, with skepticism at best and resentment at worst, like he had some nerve giving people reason to feel hope or optimism again.

Steve mentally shook himself. Why would one fan with her camera phone make him think about that again? Well, he had spent a lot of time lately thinking about how much the world had changed; it didn’t take much to trigger him nowadays.

Apparently now his classmate wanted to take one of those so-called selfie pictures, inching her way into Steve’s personal space without so much as a “Mother, may I?” and holding her phone at arm’s length from her body. An excited buzz had replaced the silence in the room, the other students closing in on him, their own phones out, awaiting their turn. Then the classroom door swung open with a bang, making everyone jump and turn, and once Steve saw who’d entered he had to hold back a sigh of relief.

“Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Drawing the Human Figure. I know when you signed up for this class the website listed me as Professor Lang-Ross, but if you expect me to answer, then you’d best just call me Lana.” Lana was young, red-haired, short, and very visibly pregnant. Despite all this, or perhaps because of it, she’d adopted a voice and demeanor that commanded respect, even with the permission to use her given name. Under her gaze, the other students suddenly remembered their manners and returned to their easels.

“Now, I know that most professors would spend a good twenty minutes going over the class syllabus and requirements, but I’m going to assume you can all read and you came here today to draw, not listen to me talk. So let’s keep this short and sweet: cell phones off and away, eat during the break, and keep talking to a minimum while we’re working. Also, I’ve had too many students who couldn’t hear me over their ear buds, and I’m not repeating myself, so I recommend you not wear them. If you need music while you work I have Pandora, but unless you have a taste for disco you might want to get used to working in silence. We’ll have two models, one male and one female, but her schedule is kind of touch and go right now, so we’ll mostly work with the guy. He’s already here and getting ready, so unless you have any questions, I suggest you get ready, too.”

The other students gave each other wary side-eye glances, but Steve liked this woman already. Now that he thought about it, he had seen a man enter the room right behind Lana before he took a sharp left towards the small adjoining room, presumably to change. Even in those few moments, Steve could see the man was very handsome.

A few minutes later, the side door opened and that same man stepped out in bare feet and a plaid robe that had obviously seen better days. A big guy, bigger than Steve, with dark wavy hair and eyeglasses in thick black frames that were really too large for his face. The most noteworthy things, however, at least in Steve’s opinion, were the spots of bright red staining the man’s cheeks.

“You okay?” Lana asked him, her tone suddenly soft and warm. The model gave her a half-shrug and a smile Steve could only describe as sheepish. “Relax,” she said, “they’re not going to bite. You can do this.” The model nodded and, clutching the knot in his robe belt like a lifeline, took his spot in the center of the room. He kept his chest up and shoulders back, a refreshing change from the perpetual slouch and slump Steve had seen in far too many people since getting out of the ice (didn’t anybody teach their kids to stand up straight anymore?), but he kept his eyes trained on the floor, determinedly not looking at the students. Well, Steve reasoned, if he were about to stand _au naturel_ in a room full of fully-clothed strangers and permit them to study literally every inch of him, he might have trouble meeting their eyes, too.

“Okay, we’re going to start with a warm-up,” Lana announced. “Fifteen minutes of small gesture sketches, each pose is one minute.” She nodded at the model and, after taking a deep breath and fixing his eyes on the ceiling, the model untied and dropped his robe.

Steve’s eyebrows climbed to his hairline, a tension in the room sparking and thickening as his classmates had similar reactions. The man was gorgeous. Muscle bulk filled out his entire frame, yet somehow he didn’t have that ridiculous overworked look professional bodybuilders strove for. He looked more like he’d done hard manual labor every day of his life. Body hair that Steve had never been able to grow even after the serum darkened this man’s chest, stomach, forearms, and legs, meeting to form a bush in his nether regions that did nothing to hide the size of his – for the second time that day Steve mentally shook himself, and picked up his charcoal. What in the world, he couldn’t help but wonder, did this guy have to be shy about?

A minute passed, and the model went from standing to crouching, his glasses sliding off. The model’s arm shot out, the fastest Steve had seen anyone move since Barton going for one of his arrows, and shoved the glasses back onto his face. Steve could only imagine that eyewear kept the guy from feeling completely naked. Another minute passed, and the model turned his back to Steve, and _holy cow!_ Steve felt his face heat up until it probably matched the model’s blush. Between his years in the Army, working alongside SHIELD agents, and fighting with his fellow Avengers, this was hardly the first time he’d been presented with a man’s firm backside, but this went beyond firm, it was, well, _thick,_ rounded and swollen away from his body. Nearly pure muscle flexed underneath that skin, too, like the man must do about a hundred squats and kicks per day. Steve barely got a sketch done for staring.

As soon as Lana’s computer ding signaled the end of the fifteen minutes, the model dropped to the floor and snatched up his robe. His face had remained red as a beet the entire time. Still, he held his head high as he stood up and met Lana’s supportive smile with a shy, and somewhat triumphant, one of his own. It was strangely endearing that a guy who obviously worked hard on his body would be so bashful about letting people see it.

The rest of the class went much like that, the model blushing through every pose, Steve reminding himself repeatedly to close his mouth as he worked. The critiques revealed Steve wasn’t the only one who’d noticed the model’s attributes, as several students had decided they really need to practice drawing six-packs and buttocks. One student even went so far as to do a study of the model’s penis, sending a wave of giggles throughout the room.

“Apparently several of my students need to be reminded that we’re supposed to be drawing the _whole_ figure,” Lana admonished. “Once you’ve mastered proportion and composition to ensure your figure doesn’t have arms like a chimpanzee and legs like a child, then you can focus on specific body parts, and based on what I saw from the gesture drawings, very few of you are there yet.” Lana gave the students a moment to absorb that, and once the chagrined silence had gone on long enough, “That’s it for today. See you next week.”

Steve tried to pack his things away as quickly as possible, but several classmates surrounded him well before he made it to the door. Several minutes and multiple selfies, autographs, and questions about the Avengers later, Steve finally escaped the classroom. Stuffing his art supplies into his locker, he seriously considered sprinting to his motorcycle if it helped him avoid getting asked again if Black Widow was single or if Thor was really that big in person, when he heard Lana’s voice in the next aisle of lockers over, warm and friendly again.

“Thank you again for doing this, Clark.”

“I’m glad I could help,” came a baritone voice, the Midwestern accent spiked with other, foreign ones. English may be the man’s first language, but it sounded like he hadn’t spoken it for several years. “But if it’s all the same to you, maybe next time the favor could involve wearing clothes?”

“Hey, it’s not a favor, it’s a deal. You need money, I need a model. Though I do want to apologize for my class. Seriously, you would think they’d never seen a nude body before.”

“It’s okay, Lana, they’re just kids.”

“They’re college students, and I expect better.”

“You were a bit strict with them, you know.”

“Yes, I was,” Lana said, and Steve could hear the smile, “Mommy and Daddy aren’t here, they need someone to keep them in check. Case in point, the way they were circling Steve Rogers like a pack of vultures moving in for the feast right before we walked in.”

“I thought that’s who that was.” That was it, no pleas for Lana to introduce them, no cursing because he didn’t get an autograph, just calm acceptance that he’d been a few feet away from an Avenger.

“He’s one of my students, is who he is, and he should be able to learn in relative peace.”

“Well, I trust you’ll crack the whip to remind them.”

“Damn straight. So, next week?”

“A promise is a promise.”

“Attaboy. Now, outta my way,” Lana ordered, “I gotta get home and take that stupid pill.”

“Don’t complain, it’s good for your iron levels.”

“It’s better for constipation.”

“You should try stewing nettle leaves, they’re high in iron. I met a midwife in Uganda who swears by them.”

“Hey, enough with that, Kent, you’ve already got Pete chewing those paava leaves you brought back from New Guinea.”

“He’s less stressed, isn’t he?”

“Now that his best friend has finally followed us to New York, he’s great. He’s really missed you, you know. We both have.”

Steve heard them move in for a hug. “I’ve missed you guys too,” Clark said, his voice suddenly thick with emotion, “more than words can say.”

As quietly as possible, Steve moved toward the building exit, hoping they didn’t hear him. He admitted to himself around the time he heard his own name that he was officially eavesdropping, and felt embarrassed with himself for doing it. Had he been that curious about the model? If so, he still hadn’t learned much beyond a name.

 _You need a date,_ a thought flashed in his head, in a voice that sounded surprisingly like Romanoff’s. Yes, that’s exactly what he needed, an evening of awkward, aborted attempts at small talk with a young woman sporting body art, her cell phone surgically attached to her hand, trying to bring him up to speed on Instagram, iPods, and other things that sounded like a foreign language. Or she’d ask Steve what things were like “way back” in his day, like a historian with the chance to interview a talking fossil. In either case, the night would end the same, with Steve alone in his bed, in his apartment, in the world.

Or … but he shut that thought down before it could go any further. True, things had changed. One only had to turn on the television to find a story about “gay” people, usually concerning their push to legalize same-sex marriage. Steve still remembered how his legs nearly gave out in the middle of his living room the first time he came across one of those news reports. From there he struggled to not comb the Internet for every scrap of information he could find – he didn’t know exactly how computers worked, but he’d already heard of spyware, and he hadn’t kept a lid on it all these years just to blow it on a Google search. But he kept his eyes peeled and his ear to the ground, and what he’d learned sent his mind reeling. They adopted children, held Pride parades, fought employment and work discrimination, attended churches that didn’t condemn them. Their bars didn’t get raided, they didn’t get arrested or institutionalized, _they lived out in the open._ They were amazing, awe-inspiring, revolutionary … and Steve couldn’t join them.

Because the fact of the matter was he was still Captain America. In his time he was merely a symbol of America’s determination to win the Second World War, an entire nation’s fighting spirit wrapped up in blue tights. Somehow, between the afternoon he took a dip in the Arctic Ocean and the morning he woke up in a SHIELD facility, he’d become much more, a paragon of virtue and decency, the personification of America’s most idealized notions about how wholesome, pure, and wonderfully simple the “good ‘ol days” allegedly were. Maybe that’s why today’s reporters looked at him with both doubt and anticipation, because they knew no human being could live up to that fantasy, and they were waiting for him to prove them right, preferably with some huge scandal that would sell papers (or score blog hits these days, Steve supposed).

Which was why there wasn’t much point in spending any time thinking about this Clark Kent, or any other fella for that matter, Steve told himself. He couldn’t do anything about it, anyhow. Besides, who’s to say it wouldn’t be just as much of a disaster as his attempts to date today’s women? Who’s to say Clark would even be interested? The guy didn’t exactly whoop with excitement when Lana confirmed Steve’s identity. No, better to just forget it, like he usually did where men were concerned, like he had his whole life.

Steve had long since stopped counting how many times he’d felt lost and alone in this new time period, but in a parking lot full of teenagers and twenty-somethings all happily discussing their weekend party plans, Steve added another moment to the list as he revved his motorcycle and headed back to his apartment. He planned to see his friends that weekend, too, but it would hardly be the same.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just in case it's unclear here, Bucky Barnes is still presumed dead, and Steve is visiting Bucky's grave at Arlington National Cemetery. I'm assuming the sergeant's sacrifice would merit a spot there, even though his remains were never recovered.

“Heya, Buck. Yeah, I know, I should be out seeing the world, not catching a plane to Virginia every chance I get. You’d really have some choice words for me if you knew how much airplane tickets cost these days, and here I am blowing that kind of money just to flap my lips at you again.

“Nothing new to report since the last time we spoke. I know I’ve told you this already, but I walk around Brooklyn, and I know in my head it’s Brooklyn, everyone says it is, but the buildings, the shops, the people, it’s like I’m walking around a foreign country, or better yet another planet. There’s some stuff that’s the same, preserved for its historical value, and doesn’t that make me feel like an old geezer, but mostly I just … have no idea where I am.

“Oh, hey, one new development. Romanoff, one of those Avengers I told you about, she knew I was feeling a bit out of sorts, so she signed me up for a college course. Yep, I’m back in art school, brushing up on whatever skills I used to have. How she found out I like to draw, I’ll never know, it ain’t like I leave sketches laying around or anything. It’s scary what people can do nowadays with this computer research of theirs. The professor is a real no-nonsense broad, you’d like her if she weren’t already taken, and the model … boy, it’s been a long time since someone got me worked up like that. Of course, it’s the first time a fella ever just stood in the raw and invited me to look my fill and then some, so that might have something to do with it. And no, Buck, you sitting around the apartment in your skivvies every summer doesn’t count, though that drove me crazy, and you knew it, too, you jerk.

“No, I haven’t gone to see Peggy yet, and I know you’re calling me a punk in there, knock it off. I’m going to go. I just don’t know if I’m ready to see her like that. No, it’s not that she’s old, it’s … I should be old with her. I’m scared that when I see her, I’ll see all the years I should have spent with her. I should have watched that face grow old, Buck. It shouldn’t be like this, her with great-grandkids while I’m still wondering how our first date would have gone.

“Sometimes I can’t decide what’s worse, seeing everything I’ve lost when I see someone elderly, or seeing it when I come here. When Peggy does pass on, everyone I’ve ever known my entire life will be in a cemetery, and here I am without even a gray hair. If God was behind this, then this must be His idea of a cruel joke. I don’t deserve to live more than you, and it’s hard to believe today’s world needs me when all I do is stand around feeling out of time and out of place. Everyone calls this a blessing, meanwhile I’m trying to figure out why I’ve been cursed.

“Well, this sad sack routine is starting to bore even me, so you must be beyond bored. God, I wish you were here to tell me so. I wish I could turn around every time this world makes my head hurt and see you there, probably just as confused as I am. I wish …

“Tell the Commandos I’ll come back tomorrow before I fly out to the U.K.. I miss you, pal. See you later.”

* * *

The aroma of disinfectant had always turned Steve’s stomach. For everyone else, the smell of aging bodies bothered them, but for Steve the chemicals hospitals used to cover the scent of decay overpowered his senses, stinging his eyes and mouth and assaulting his nose like a physical blow. Even so, Steve had to admit it wasn’t the disinfectant that had him ready to lose his lunch, but nerves.

He turned the door handle, and walked into Peggy Carter’s life. The walls boasted photographs, news articles, awards, physical documentation of all the lives she’d touched. And in the bed lay the lady herself, her deeply lined face proof that she’d spent a good deal of her life smiling, her white hair in a similar wavy bob as the one she’d worn when he last saw her.

“S-Steve?” the wavering voice typical of elderly people still had the timbre Steve remembered, the same lilting accent that made him want to listen to her all day.

“Hello, Peggy.” He found it difficult to talk around the lump in his throat, so he focused instead on pulling up a chair.

“They told me you came back, that they’d found you, I even saw you,” her brown eyes flickered toward the television, “in New York with Tony and the others, but I didn’t believe it.” Her withered hand wavered in midair, hovering over his cheek as if afraid to touch him. “Is it really you?”

“Yeah, it’s me.” Steve took her fragile hand in his and brought it to his face, and suddenly it was too much, this unfamiliar touch that he’d once wanted to, that he _should_ have, spent the last seventy years recognizing as his wife’s. But he’d lost that, along with his friends, and his brothers in arms, and the second family he’d had in the Barnes household, and the old neighborhood and the city and the entire world he’d known. He’d lost everything except the one thing he should have lost, that he’d willingly sacrificed. Why did he have his life back only to lose everyone who made it worth living?

He didn’t know when he’d started crying, but at some point he felt Peggy’s fingers combing his hair, heard her voice murmuring soothing words. Instead of calming him, her comfort made the cracked dam within him burst. He hadn’t meant the visit to go like this, he’d intended to reassure her, not have the woman watch him blubber like a baby. And still he couldn’t stop.

“Steve,” she whispered, after he’d taken forever and a half to pull himself together, “you’ve lost so much, but you also have a whole new world to gain. I have to believe you’ll find a reason to enjoy living in it.”

“You always knew how to read my mind,” he sniffed, wiping his face. “But I’m not here to whine about my problems. I want to hear about my best girl.” He gently kissed her swollen knuckles. “Tell me everything.”

Later that night, he considered her words. For all his physical upgrades, even a serum-enhanced mind might snap if he didn’t find a way to move forward with his life. Big surprise, once again Peggy Carter’s wisdom made Steve Rogers a better man.


	3. Chapter 3

_Well, so much for that brilliant idea,_ Steve thought. He had thirty minutes until class began, Lana’s rule against eating during class time, and the perpetually empty stomach that came with his serum-enhanced metabolism, so he stopped at the cafeteria and grabbed a tray of food. Only when he turned away from the cash register did he finally note there were no seats open. Of course he’d seen the place was jam-packed with students, but they were always on the move, walking while reading, while texting, hardly sitting down long enough to eat, so Steve thought he at least had a shot at a chair. For a moment he entertained himself with how these kids would react if he just walked up to a table, introduced himself as Captain America, and asked if he could sit with them … then his face fell a bit as he realized that was probably exactly what he’d have to do.

Then a table for two miraculously opened up right in front of him, but before he could take more than a step a man – the class model, Clark Kent – appeared seemingly out of nowhere and claimed one of the seats. Steve sighed and started scanning the room again when Clark caught his eye and gestured to the other chair.

“Thanks,” Steve said as he sat down, “I was beginning to think I’d have to find a spot on the floor.”

“I see lots of students do that around here. You’d be in good company.” Clark spread his napkin over his lap, something Steve hardly saw anybody do anymore; Stark didn’t even bother unless he wore a three-piece suit.

“I was cursing you in my head there for a second,” Steve admitted. “You snatched this table right from under me.”

“I had to move quickly, there was a pair of guys closing in fast from the opposite direction.”

“Oh, so actually you’ve stolen their table, and made me complicit in your crime.”

Clark matched Steve’s small smirk with his own. “No, I just intercepted their play, there’s a difference. Besides, they’ve already found another spot.” He gestured to the boys seated behind Steve.

“Football terminology?”

“It seemed appropriate.” He stretched out a hand. “I’m Clark.”

Steve already knew the man’s name, and knew that Clark knew his, thanks to Steve’s earlier eavesdropping. He tried not to look embarrassed as he shook Clark’s hand. “Steve.”

“I know.” Again, no big reaction. Torn between gratitude that Clark didn’t fawn over him, and a temptation to clarify he was _the_ Steve Rogers just to see what would happen, Steve didn’t say anything. It was moot anyway, Clark already knew he was Captain America. Why did it matter so much whether this guy was impressed?

“So, where are you from?” Steve didn’t usually go for small talk when he had a plate of food in front of him, but curiosity got the better of him. Even though he’d already guessed Clark hailed from the heartland, he found himself fishing for ways to get the guy talking.

“Kansas,” Clark confirmed, “a town called Smallville.” He caught the look on Steve’s face and smiled. “Seriously, that’s the town’s name. It fits, too.”

Steve ignored the temptation to crack a joke, or pull a face, or anything to get a glimpse of that smile again, and stayed on topic. “How does someone go from Smallville to New York?”

“Well, after finishing high school, I decided I wanted to see a little more of the world, and since I needed to attend college anyway, I killed two birds with one stone and studied abroad.”

“What did you study?”

“Journalism. I know, hardly a growth market when everyone has their own blog these days. I won’t ever get rich and famous or rack up Pulitzers like Lois Lane, but that’s not why I do it. I just love to write. I like challenging myself, trying something because I know it’ll be difficult, and for me there’s nothing more daunting than finding just the right words to pull a reader in, no matter how bored or busy they are, or how short their attention span is. To help them see what I’ve seen, make them care about a stranger on the other side of the planet, and identify with them. When I accomplish that, it’s like I’m helping to bring people together, unify the human race a little bit at a time.”

Even behind the slightly ridiculous glasses, Steve could see a fire in Clark’s eyes as he spoke. “You talk like you’ve already done it. Have you already finished your degree and gotten published?”

Clark nodded. “I was always on the move, always a transfer student, until I finally cobbled together enough credits for my bachelor’s. After that I spent a few years doing freelance work for small newspapers in different countries.” Most people would brag about traveling, listing each exotic or dangerous locale like personal accomplishments. Clark made it sound like he just got back from a weekend in Jersey.

“But you don’t write anymore?”

“I will again, and maybe someday I’ll start traveling again, but for the last year I just …” Clark paused, and Steve could see they’d hit a personal topic. “Needed a break,” he finished. Then one side of his mouth quirked up in a smirk. “Of course, now I’m out of money.”

Steve found himself smirking back. “That would explain your current occupation.”

Clark’s cheeks went a shade of pink. “It’s a living. Also, I get to help out a friend. That alone makes it worth it.”

Steve would lay down his life for a total stranger, and he once sat in Army recruitment offices in his boxers without batting an eye, but he couldn’t imagine any circumstance where he would willingly pose in the buff for someone. Lana must mean the world to Clark. She may be an old lover; it didn’t seem likely he’d bare it all to a friend who hadn’t seen it before. Steve held back a sigh. He was always sweet on the wrong fellas, the ones today's kids called straight guys: carrying a torch for Bucky all those years, the crush on Tony Stark that Steve _absolutely refused_ to cop to, and now this. The story of his life.

Clark reached for his fork, the motion tugging back the sleeve of his old flannel shirt – and Steve’s throat contracted, sending the water he was drinking down his trachea. Clark had always worn at least one piece of jewelry, a small asymmetrical pentagon pendant with a stylized ‘S’ in its center. It wasn’t the unique necklace, however, that caught Steve’s eye, but a band around Clark's wrist, notable because Steve had seen similar designs – in nearly every news story about gay people.

“Are you okay?” Clark asked.

“You – that’s – you’re –” Still working through his coughing fit, Steve looked at Clark through watering eyes and used the hand not covering his mouth to gesture at Clark’s right hand.

Clark raised an eyebrow and brought his left hand to his wrist, his fingers curling around the rainbow beads almost protectively. “You mean these?”

Steve nodded, his eyes fixed on the bracelet. He was in his living room all over again, on shaking legs and unable to speak, watching two men in matching white tuxedos share a kiss on his television screen. _This is possible now?! Out in broad daylight?! I could have this?!_ When he finally looked up again, Clark’s usually open face was guarded.

“Are you okay?” Clark repeated in a wary tone.

It took Steve a moment to realize how he must have come off. He would be the first to admit his 1940s sensibilities were hard to shake, and in fact he saw no reason to unlearn most of them. His core values made him who he was, made him the man Dr. Erskine deemed worthy of the serum in the first place. But he’d run into a disturbing number of people lately who assumed his old-fashioned ways included prejudice, who made comments about women, blacks, gays, anyone different, and expected Steve to chuckle along with them. Spending the first twenty years of his life dismissed, underestimated, and deemed inferior, however, had left Steve with a sharp perspective on judging people by, as Dr. King came to word it, the content of their character. That judgment led to Steve’s handpicked Howling Commandos, and the total coincidence of their multicultural, multiracial makeup. Because of that judgment, he felt every bit as awestruck as a person should by the sheer force of nature that was Agent Peggy Carter. It also meant Steve had already decided Clark was good people; the bracelet just opened up a few other exciting possibilities.

“I’m okay,” Steve said. “Really, I am.”

“Are you sure? That was a heck of a reaction.”

“That was my drink going down the wrong pipe. Just bad timing, is all.”

“And now?” Clark still looked leery.

“Now … I’m surprised, mainly because I’ve never seen you wear that before. I’ve seen you in your birthday suit, I’m sure I would have noticed it.”

Clark’s telltale blush crept up his neck. Steve marveled at how someone so shy would still find the guts to volunteer for nude modeling. “I try to take off anything that I don’t need, that might distract the students. It’s the same reason I don’t wear my watch.”

That response left Clark wide open for a question about the glasses and the ‘S’ pendant, which as far as Steve could tell never came off. But Steve let it slide, opting for something he wanted to know more. “How long have you been … out?”

“Since I was nineteen. I thought I’d seen every reaction, from spontaneous hugs, to backing away like I’m contagious, to spitting in my face and yelling that I’ll burn in Hell.” Clark smirked. “None of them were as fun to watch as yours, though.”

“Fun, huh?”

“For a second there I thought you might shoot water out of your nose.”

Steve shook his head. “Well, I’m glad I could provide some entertainment with your meal.”

“Yes, thanks for that.” Clark’s face split into another dazzling grin, and Steve, to his own amusement, decided it was worth nearly choking just to see that smile again. Suppressing the part of him that wanted to jump up and cheer about the bracelet, Steve dipped his head and took another sip of water, carefully this time.

With the clock ticking, both men turned their attention to their food, Steve noting Clark’s meatless plate was piled higher than his. It made sense, Clark probably needed a lot of food to maintain that amazing physique, especially if he didn’t get his protein from meat. Clark also kept his elbows off the table, taking Steve back to the days when, between his mother and the nuns, he couldn’t bring his elbows anywhere near a tabletop without flinching away from an anticipated smack to the back of his head. While he’d had a few choice words for those ladies that he’d never dare utter back then, today the memory made Steve smile.

“Is the food that good?” Steve found Clark looking at him again.

“No, I mean, yeah, it’s alright, it’s just … I went strolling down Memory Lane for a minute there, sorry.”

“At least it looked like it was one of the happier paths.”

Steve smiled again. “I was remembering my mom.”

Clark’s head rose a bit. “Really? If, if you wouldn’t mind telling me, I’d like to hear more about her.”

Other people typically tried to get Steve to open up about the Avengers, usually searching for some as yet unknown dirt on Stark or to confirm whatever sexual fantasies they harbored for Romanoff. Or they wanted him to relive the Battle of New York over and over, as if he relished the tale of his home soil being turned into a war zone. Some even tried to use his World War II experiences as a kind of icebreaker, because naturally nothing would make Steve feel more at home than recalling all the brave men who died in droves around him, as if he didn’t revisit them enough in his nightmares. But as Steve sat there, remembering Sarah Rogers’s weary, loving smile, how she sometimes insisted she was watching her figure to ensure her son had enough to eat, how even in her final days she talked only of her boy looking after himself, Steve found he enjoyed bringing his mom to life again through his words. Clark, for his part, seemed genuinely interested, probably a trait that made him a good interviewer, yet something told Steve there was more to it than that. Behind those glasses there was a kind of hunger in his eyes.

Going on a hunch, Steve gently asked, “And what about your parents? Are they still with you?” And there it was, that all too familiar flash of pain across Clark’s face. Steve saw that same expression every day in the mirror. “I’m sorry.”

“No, no, it’s okay. Pa had a heart attack when I was still a teenager, then Ma went to bed one night about a year ago and joined him.”

A year ago, around the same time Clark stopped globetrotting and writing. “She went in her sleep?”

Clark nodded. “Old age. She was eighty-two.”

Steve looked at Clark’s youthful face and did the math in his head. She would had to have given birth to Clark while in her sixties, late fifties at the earliest.

Clark seemed to follow his train of thought. “I was adopted. But yeah, Ma and Pa weren’t exactly spring chickens when they took me in.”

“That couldn’t have been easy for them.”

“Oh, I was a handful, that’s for sure,” and for the first time since they began talking, Clark’s eyes shifted away. “But my folks were determined to bring me up right, and … well, they didn’t scare easy.”

Steve could hear the reverence in Clark’s voice, and imagined he probably sounded the same when he talked about his own mom. Steve found himself as curious to hear about “Ma and Pa” Kent as Clark had been to know Sarah better. But just as he leaned in to ask, Clark looked at his watch.

“Uh-oh.”

“No. Tell me we’re not late.” Something told Steve that Lana didn’t suffer latecomers gladly.

“No, but we will be if we don’t hustle.” Hurriedly bussing their trays, they headed for the door.

“Do I have time to set up my workspace?”

“Not unless you run.”

“In that case – sorry!” Shooting an apologetic look over his shoulder, Steve broke into a sprint. Clark could afford to show up just under the wire, he only had to walk in and strip. Steve was the one who needed an extra few minutes.

Pounding footsteps sounded behind him, and then beside him. Steve turned his head and nearly stumbled over his feet. Clark was keeping pace with him! No one had ever done that, not since the serum.

Clark shot him a smile. “You think I wanna be late? Lana would skin me alive!”

Curious, Steve put on a burst of speed, and so did Clark. Smiling back now, Steve took the wide staircase five stairs at a time, and right beside him Clark did the same. Steve was about to go all out when up ahead a cyclist, paying absolutely no attention to his surroundings, coasted right in front of them. Without hesitation Steve leapt, easily clearing the biker’s helmet by a foot. Glancing behind him, he saw Clark had skidded to a halt. Steve continued on to class, any sense of triumph quickly dampened as he realized he enjoyed running with Clark far more than beating him.

Another three hours of studying Clark’s unclothed body, remembering how much he enjoyed their time together, thinking about that bracelet and what it meant, and Steve had to fold his jacket across his groin to keep from embarrassing himself. The motorcycle ride back to his apartment, with the engine vibrating underneath the entire time, ratcheted up the ache between his legs to pure torture. Before this class, reflecting on the bizarre turn his life had taken proved more effective than any saltpeter. In the last week, however, Steve had run twenty extra miles every morning, taken cold showers in the middle of the day, and still rubbed himself raw each night to images of Clark kneeling before him, or straddling his hips, or bent over his kitchen table. Tonight wouldn’t be any different.

As soon as his apartment door slammed behind him Steve snatched his belt and fly open and shoved his boxers down. Not bothering to undress or move to the bedroom, he leaned against the door and furiously beat off, biting his lip till it bled to keep from moaning Clark’s name and inadvertently coming out to the neighbors. In his mind, Clark lay on his back, his legs hooked behind Steve’s back, begging Steve to pound him harder. Steve came in under a minute, decorating several pieces of living room furniture, his fist banging the door behind him. Unfortunately, he wasn’t done; his serum-fueled body guaranteed this was only the first of several rounds.

Only much later that night, panting on sweat-dampened sheets, both hands and wrists tired, his body spent, and his mind finally calm enough to fall asleep, did it occur to Steve to wonder why Clark had looked so nervous after their race.


	4. Chapter 4

Steve didn’t know when or why exactly Romanoff and Barton had appointed themselves as his personal sponsors – it could be anything from genuine concern to a direct order from Fury – but Steve suspected there was more to their frequent weapons training and sparring sessions than a desire to keep Captain America in peak form, especially since they always peppered the meetings with casual questions about his progress adapting to the 21st century. SHIELD probably theorized that confiding in a brother or sister in arms would likely yield better results than sending Steve for another mandatory visit with a psychologist.

Today he had target practice with Barton. Steve of course preferred to knock out guys with his shield, to the point where he didn’t even bother to carry a gun anymore, but a time might come when he’d need one and he couldn’t afford to get rusty.

About five minutes in, with neither of them missing their target, Barton opened with, “So, how’s the drawing class going?”

“Why, Romanoff looking for a chance to brag?”

“Of course, Nat’s the one who suggested it. She’ll want to hear all about how right she was.”

Steve thought back to the last class. The female model, Katie, had finally made an appearance, a heart-faced blonde with a generous bosom, small waist, large hips and gams that went on forever, the kind of girl Bucky would have called a doll. The rest of Steve’s classmates reacted predictably to the sight of a new body, getting excited all over again. Steve could certainly appreciate that she was cute, yet his hand flew across his paper almost mechanically, glad for the chance to practice drawing hands and feet more than anything else. After class Katie bounced up to him, still without a stitch on, to gush that she was his biggest fan while in the same breath asking if he could introduce her to Thor because he was “just so hot.” He couldn’t pack up and leave fast enough.

As usual, Barton picked up on Steve’s body cues and answered for him. “Not having fun?”

“No, it’s not that. The class is great, it’s just the last one was a little rocky.”

“What changed?”

“Um, the model.” Katie’s vapid face swam before him, then the image changed and Clark stood there, his kind, gentle expression juxtaposed with his almost obscene body, his chest hair and his muscles and _Christ, his behind …_

“About damned time, Cap! What’s her name?”

Blast it, Barton read him again! Snapped out of his reverie, Steve focused on the target and fired, trying to block out the archer’s inquisitive stare. “No, it-it’s nothing like that.” The bullet missed the center target by a few millimeters. “I didn’t, I didn’t meet anyone or anything.” The next bullet was off by centimeters. “I’m-I-I’m just having fun in the class, that’s all.” A full inch sat between the third bullet and the target.

“Okay.” The rest of the session passed without another word, but then, just as they finished cleaning and turning in their weapons, “You should ask her out.”

“Thanks for the practice.” Steve left at a brisk pace, his ears hot, hoping against hope that Barton hadn’t noticed.

Ask Clark out. Steve had to admit the thought had crossed his mind – hell, plagued his mind – quite a bit since their lunch together. He had no idea what they would do – no, Steve had _several_ ideas, none of which were appropriate for a first date. But it seemed ridiculous to assume, to hope, that Clark didn’t already have a boyfriend, because how could anyone that sweet and intelligent and positively stunning not have men lined up around the block? True, he hadn’t mentioned a boyfriend, and frankly Steve found it hard to believe anyone could date Clark and not mind their man taking it all off for a room of young pretty co-eds every week. Still, there could be a lover waiting in the wings.

The openness issue also played a factor. Why would a man who displayed his orientation right there on his wrist bother with Steve, who hadn’t even told his teammates and couldn’t imagine telling the world? If Steve started spending time with a known homosexual, eventually people would speculate on the nature of their relationship, and it would only look cowardly if Steve didn’t tell everyone himself. Even so, the idea of issuing a news release or calling a press conference to announce which side his bread was buttered on was ludicrous. Steve wouldn’t shout his business from the rooftops like that even if he was getting married!

Still … if Steve at least made it clear he was interested, if Clark knew he had a shot with him, that might make a difference. He tried to picture Clark turning him down, Clark’s manners and decency guaranteeing he’d be as gentle as possible, and he’d likely keep Steve’s secret afterwards. He also envisioned Clark saying yes: his eyes lighting up behind his overlarge glasses, his handsome face breaking into that beautiful smile, maybe even leaning in for a long-imagined first kiss. Then he imagined not telling Clark, or anyone else, never finding out if it could have happened, and taking his secret to the grave, possibly after living out his life alone.

He sent up a silent prayer that Clark would model for the next class, before Steve lost his nerve, and began rehearsing how he would ask another man on a date.

* * *

Hacking the school’s computers was something Clint Barton could do in his sleep. It took less than five minutes to access the art department’s records and find the names of Lang-Ross’s models. The male one wasn’t a student, but the female attended the school full-time.

“Damn, Cap, you sly dog,” Clint muttered to himself as he checked out Katie Callahan’s student ID. “She’s barely legal.”

A quick background check revealed no apparent threats, same as the scant few women Rogers had attempted to date since his return. Maybe the press would have fun calling Captain America a cradle robber, but that was about it.

Clint chalked it up to their team leader having some long overdue and well-deserved fun, turned his focus to his upcoming mission in Ghana, and didn’t pursue the matter further.


	5. Chapter 5

Steve hadn’t had a case of the jitters like this in a long time – literally. Asking someone on a date shouldn’t rate on the same level as Project Rebirth, yet every time he considered what he planned to do he got that same heart rate spike, same dry mouth, even the same wave of nausea. He hadn’t even reached the campus yet, and he’d already had second, third, and fourth thoughts since he’d climbed onto his motorcycle, reviewing all the reasons he should and shouldn’t over and over in his head.

He’d even considered a rather low idea, thinking it might make for a simpler request. Steve had grown up in Brooklyn Heights, a neighborhood as queer as it was poor back in his day, where it only took a glance down a dark alley or a walk along the docks to find men furtively seeking each other for a few moments of pleasure. People called such dalliances a one-night stand or a hookup these days – and those were the nicer terms – and Steve briefly entertained the idea that he might improve his chances if he asked nothing more of Clark than a few extra hours with his clothes off.

But, bottom line, Steve just wasn’t that kind of guy, and somehow he doubted Clark was, either. He felt ashamed for even thinking it, really, almost feeling the glares and slaps he’d get if any of the women who’d expected better of him – his mother, Buck's mom, the nuns – caught him even thinking about tomcatting around. Of course, they’d probably have more to say if they knew Steve was wound up tighter than a wristwatch over another man, but that was getting off-topic.

Besides, Steve remembered the passion in Clark’s face and voice as he explained why he loved journalism, the way he stared into Steve’s eyes and drank in every word as Steve told stories of his mom. Steve still wanted to know more about Clark’s travels, hear stories about his parents, find out how many languages he knew, whether he followed the Kansas City Royals, everything. For all Steve’s base fantasies, he wanted to know Clark in more than the Biblical sense, and that would only come with dating – or that “friends with benefits” thing Barton once tried to explain that frankly just sounded confusing.

Steve walked into the classroom about fifteen minutes early, and his heart sank. There was Katie, surrounded by male students feigning interest as she chattered away about her major. Resisting the urge to drop all pretense and propriety, walk up to Lana and flat out ask when Clark would return, Steve instead set up his supplies and settled in for another three hours of missing someone he barely knew.

Then the door opened and Clark walked in, clad in his customary flannel and jeans, the rainbow beads peeking from under his sleeve cuff. Steve was rather embarrassed at how his heart leapt in his chest, but delight quickly replaced that. The words Steve had rehearsed for the last week, however, died in his throat as another man walked in behind Clark, the two of them in mid-conversation.

“How is this even a question?!” the sandy-haired man asked. He was of average height and build, and talked with his hands. “The Giants won the Super Bowl! They’ve got Eli Manning, for crying out loud! How are you even talking about the Jets?! They didn’t even make the freakin’ playoffs last year!” Steve wondered if the man always spoke like he wanted the entire room to hear him even when his audience stood less than a foot away.

Clark turned to him. “You remember the Crows?”

“I remember watching them lose!”

“Pa used to take me to those games all the time,” and even from across the room Steve saw Clark’s expression warm at the memory. “He dragged you along sometimes, too, remember? We’d pack our picnic basket, drive to Smallville High, find spots in the bleachers, and watch the Crows lose nearly every game. And even after Pa would admit the team stank, when I asked him why we kept going to their games, he’d get this look in his eyes and say, ‘There’s always hope, son.’ I like to root for the underdog because they’re the ones that need it, and because there’s always hope.”

The sandy-haired man nodded with a chuckle, and Steve felt a flash of jealousy, not only because the man was with Clark, but because he’d obviously known “Pa” Kent, had known Clark since childhood. Was this loudmouth Clark’s boyfriend? If so, how could Steve hope to compete with decades of history? It would be like someone vying to be Steve’s best pal over Bucky. Steve hunched over his easel.

As such, he almost missed it when the assumed boyfriend went up to Lana, hugged her from behind and kissed her neck. “And how’s the most beautiful woman in the world today?”

“I was doing great until some idiot came barging into my class and started groping me.” Despite the words, Lana grinned over her shoulder at him.

“Where is he?!” The guy whipped his head around, as if someone other than him had their hands on Lana. “Lemme at him, I’ll kick his ass!” Clark rolled his eyes and Lana giggled.

Steve’s eyes shot to the guy’s left hand, and there, plain as day, sat a gold band. This was the “Ross” in “Professor Lang-Ross,” he was Lana’s husband! Clark looked over his shoulder at Steve and offered a small wave. Steve nearly knocked over his easel waving back. Jeez, why couldn’t the serum cure his awkwardness?

It seemed to be going around. Clark ambled over to Steve with his hands shoved in his pockets, his teeth worrying his lower lip. “Hi. Could I, um, talk to you outside for a minute?”

“Okay.” Once in the hallway, Clark looked nervous again, almost as bad as after their race. His eyes landed everywhere except Steve's face, and he scratched a hand through his hair, making the barely tamed waves spring into willful curls all over his head. “Clark, are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m good. You know, we, uh, talked about my job and career, but we never got around to yours.”

Steve could only blink. Clark had recognized him the first week of class! “You know who I am.”

“Well, yes, but, for instance, in the 1940s you worked for the United States Army.”

“… Yeah?”

“And now?”

“Well, technically, I’m still enlisted in the Army. Got over seventy years of back pay headed my way and everything, once the paperwork’s done.”

“Oh, then I guess congratulations are in order. You’re going to be rich.”

“Comfortable, maybe, but with today’s cost of living, I’ll probably still need a job.” For the life of him Steve couldn’t figure out where this conversation was going. “Is that what you wanted to ask me?”

“Yeah, well, I mean no, um, not exactly,” Clark said to his shoes. “I guess I’m kind of doing this in a roundabout way …”

“You might want to cut to the chase, class starts in a few minutes.”

“Wouldyouliketogooutwithme?”

“… W-what?”

“Would, would you, would you like to go out with me? On a date.”

Steve could only gape like a fish. In the silence, Clark began babbling.

“Because I don’t know if you know this – probably not, you must have been hit with so much new information since you came back – but there was this repeal last year and gays can serve in the military now, not to say that you _are_ gay, I mean I wouldn’t know, we don’t know each other that well, but that’s kind of the point, getting to know you better, and you know it doesn’t have to be an actual date, it could just be two guys hanging out, I can do that too, I just wanted you to know that it could, you know, _be_ a date, and I’d be alright with that, that is of course if you’re alright with it, and if you’re not then that’s fine too –”

“Stop!” Steve looked around to check that they were alone, feeling a smile forming on his face. “Okay, yeah. Yes. I’d like that.”

Clark stood there a second, almost in shock, before another one of those heart-stopping smiles split his face. “When?”

“Tonight, if you can. Where can I pick you up?” Clark may have taken the initiative in asking, but Steve wasn’t a girl in this scenario, to hell with playing coy.

Clark scribbled on and handed him a small piece of paper. “That’s my address. There are some pretty good places to eat within walking distance. I’m hanging out with Pete this afternoon, but this evening I’m free.”

“Pete, that’s –?” Steve jerked his thumb towards the classroom.

“Yeah.” Clark looked at the room and back at Steve, his brow furrowing. “You didn’t think he and I were –?”

“No, no, not at all, thought never crossed my mind. I barely even noticed the guy. So, -”

Just then the classroom door banged open. “Time to go! Just told Lana we’re going to the restaurant that serves those blondies she likes, and now she’s pissed ‘cause she’s still stuck here for the next three hours. Never dangle dessert in front of a pregnant woman’s face, remember that! Hey, is this him?” Pete pointed at Steve.

“Yes, Pete, this is Steve Rogers. Steve, Pete Ross.”

“You ask him out yet?”

After giving Pete a warning look, Clark nodded.

“About time, man! You’ve been talking about him nonstop for the last two weeks!”

Steve tried hard to not grin as Clark glared at his friend like he wanted to strangle him. Pete seemed unfazed; Steve would bet he got that look from his friend all the time.

“Let’s go, Pete, before you say anything else. Bye, Steve.” Clark pinned Pete to his side with a firm arm around the smaller man’s shoulders and practically marched him down the hall.

Steve turned to head back into the classroom, chewing his lower lip to keep his mouth from stretching into another grin. He had a date, a date he was actually _excited_ about for a change! He just had to make it through the afternoon, then he’d head over to Clark’s at – what time? They’d never settled on a time. Well, he could just call and – wait. Steve unfurled the paper and found just an address, no phone number. Steve nearly smacked his forehead, how could he forget to ask for his phone number?! Steve took off after the two men, following Pete’s booming voice echoing through the hallways. He spotted them just as they reached the foot of the stairs.

“Seriously though,” Pete went on, “we’d better bring back a doggie bag or something, or else I’m sleeping on the couch tonight!”

“You’d deserve it for humiliating me just now.”

“Aw, get over it, Clark, I’ve embarrassed you worse! At least now he knows you’re interested!”

“Yeah, I am.” Clark stopped walking and crossed his arms over his chest. “God, I’m interested.” Pete caught the vulnerable look on his friend’s face, and some instinct made Steve take a step back, just enough to hide in the doorway.

“Clark, hey,” Pete said, surprising Steve by lowering his voice. “You’re really nervous about this, aren’t you? Man, you’ve got no reason to be. Look, I don’t know what it’s like to go out with a famous superhero, okay? But I do know this, Steve Rogers is going on a date with a hero, too. The world just doesn’t know it.”

“It’s not about that,” Clark said.

“Then what?” Pete asked, and Steve’s ears perked up despite himself. The fact that Steve had now eavesdropped on Clark and a friend in the hallway for a second time wasn’t lost on him, but once again his curiosity overrode the guilt.

Clark hung his head and mumbled so low that if the serum hadn’t enhanced Steve’s hearing he’d never have caught it. “I just … really want him to like me, too.”

Pete put his hands on Clark’s shoulders. “Dude, unless I missed something, the world still thinks he’s straight, and with connections like Tony Stark it wouldn’t be that hard for him to keep up the Captain Hetero façade and still bang guys on the D.L. if that’s all he wanted. If he’s willing to risk being outed just to have a chance with you, I think that pretty much proves he likes you already.”

Clark searched his friend’s face for a second before huffing out a small smile.

“Finally! Enough with the gay teen melodrama! I’m freakin’ starving!” Back to his usual decibels, Pete headed for the exit. Rolling his eyes again, Clark followed.

Steve waited until they’d nearly reached the door before he called out, “Clark! Does seven work for you?”

Clark spun around. “Wh-?  Uh … yeah. Yes, seven’s good.”

“I’m sorry, it’s just we never said a time, and you didn’t give me your number.”

“I can’t afford a phone,” Clark blurted out, his face going pink as he realized what he’d said. “So, um, I-I’m glad you caught me.”

Coming from a time when he’d had to ignore his growling stomach, fist his hands in his empty pockets and walk right past baskets of mouthwatering apples that cost only a nickel, Steve would hardly judge Clark for living on a tight budget. But he also remembered how it could wound a man’s pride to openly discuss his financial straits.

“Yeah, me too,” Steve said instead and, at a loss for what else to say, he filled the silence by focusing on Clark, his tousled hair, his glasses slightly askew.  Steve imagined those curls tangled between his fingers, the glasses knocked crooked from a rough kiss. Clark returned the stare, his eyes darkening and dropping to Steve's mouth, and Steve's heart rate spiked again as he realized Clark was thinking along the same lines.

“When you two are done eye-fucking, can we go eat? Seriously, I'm hungry!”

Somehow Clark’s already reddened face went an even deeper shade. _“Pete!”_

Pete held up his hands in mock surrender, but he didn’t look sorry at all.

“So,” Steve managed, before his own blush grew any deeper, or he sent Pete a death glare of his own, “see you at seven?” Clark’s crimson, mortified face and quick nod answered him as they left.

Steve remembered when mere months ago, a lifetime ago, Peggy sauntered into a pub with a show-stopping red dress and eyes for no man but him, how it felt at long last to have someone he desired want him just as much in return. A similar feeling overcame him now, and he barely resisted the urge to punch the air and crow in victory.

And the “hero” comment intrigued him. There were all kinds of heroes: maybe Clark had once been a Peace Corps enlistee, or he volunteered at his local homeless shelter, or perhaps he helped elderly people carry their groceries. All of those sounded like things a guy like Clark would do, and just wondering about it made Steve like him even more.

Steve headed back to the classroom, and if he had a bit of a spring in his step, well, who could blame him?


	6. Chapter 6

Clark’s apartment building was a bit run down, and considering the neighborhood, that was saying something. But he was right about the eateries – they couldn’t walk two blocks without finding soul food, Mexican food, and fast food restaurants on either side of them. A few more blocks, and they entered the pizza place Clark recommended.

“The most underrated pizza in the South Bronx,” Clark boasted.

“Careful, you’re talking to a native New Yorker, here,” Steve said. “What would a Kansas hayseed know about New York pizza?”

“I’d wager about as much as the typical New Yorker knows about fried tarantula, but I know what I like to eat.”

“Fried what?”

“Tarantula, it’s a delicacy in Cambodia.”

“Huh. I kind of got the impression that you’re vegetarian.”

“I usually am, but when you want to make friends with the locals, it helps to not refuse any food they offer.”

“So you really ate that?”

Clark nodded. “Sort of like a combination of codfish and chicken.”

Steve couldn’t decide if he was intrigued or disgusted. “We’re not going to find any toppings like that here, are we?”

Clark laughed. “Don’t worry, they keep it pretty traditional, nothing weirder than pineapple – though if you ask me, pineapples on pizza is pretty weird.”

“Says the guy who eats tarantulas.”

After finding a table and placing their orders, the two men shared a moment of awkward silence. Steve couldn’t believe it, he had about a hundred things he wanted to know about Clark, but somehow none of them felt like good conversation starters. Stop the presses, breaking news, Steve Rogers, the guy who’d never been on a date with a man, was terrible at it.

Again, Clark took the initiative. “Thanks for not saying anything about the neighborhood. I know it’s not the best, and there are some bad eggs, but there are also a lot of good people living around here.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“Pete wouldn’t shut up about the area the one time he came by – granted, he never shuts up about anything – and Lana won’t even visit me here. But you rode right up and parked your Harley out there like it doesn’t faze you at all.”

Steve frowned. “You do know when and where I grew up, right? I’d have to be a first class heel to look down my nose at someone else for living rough.”

“I know, and I know you’re not. I just wanted to let you know I appreciate that you’re … well, not.”

Okay, if Clark could risk stumbling like that, then Steve could take the conversation plunge, too. “If you’ve been all over the world with limited funds, then surely you’ve lived in worse places.”

“I wouldn’t call it worse so much as interesting. I could pack up the yurt and carry it with me – almost as good as driving a Winnebago – and the igloo was surprisingly effective at keeping us all warm.”

“Us?”

“The Inuit family I stayed with. I interviewed them for a story on how global warming affects their quality of life.”

“I’m going to have to do an Internet search on your articles, aren’t I?”

Clark smiled. “That would be very flattering, but it’s hardly necessary. Besides, you could always just ask me.” And so they whiled away the time talking about some of Clark’s stories. It turned out Clark had set foot on every continent, and even casually mentioned visiting countries where Steve knew an American reporter couldn’t have had an easy time of it, but when Steve mentioned it Clark only shrugged and said he had “a knack for getting out of tight spots.”

The pizzas arrived: Clark’s a spinach and mushroom, Steve’s a meat lover’s. While it wasn’t the best in New York, Steve had to concede it was pretty good. They ate in silence while Steve considered the best way to word his next question.

“I can tell from the way you’ve talked about your parents that they meant a lot to you, and I’m guessing that like any kid you really valued their opinion of you. How did … did you ever tell them you’re …” Steve pointed in the general direction of Clark’s rainbow beads.

“I didn’t have to, actually. I sat Ma down and, after nearly ten minutes of hemming and hawing, I finally got the words out. She stood up, went to the hutch, opened a drawer and came back with a little plastic shopping bag, and inside the bag was this bracelet.” Clark blinked back tears. “The receipt showed she’d bought it months earlier. She knew – ‘A mama always knows her boy,’ she said – she was just waiting for me to pluck up the courage to finally tell her. My ma went to church every Sunday, taught Bible study groups, wouldn’t let Pa take the Lord’s name in vain in our house. Yet she didn’t hesitate to accept me. I suppose she’d decided a long time ago she was willing to bend some rules where I was concerned. I’ve worn it ever since.”

“You’ve never had to tell anyone else?”

“People who want to know, especially if they’re interested in me, tend to look for some clue which team I play for. Whether it leads to a disappointed woman or a pleased man, I haven’t met anyone yet who failed to notice my beads, including yourself.”

Steve managed a smile, but another issue weighed on him. “I … don’t think I have the luxury of telling just one person. I’m a public figure, and it seems nowadays public figures are expected to hold a press conference and announce to the world who they date. I can’t see myself doing something like that over something so personal. Never mind that I’m supposed to be the guy who represents everything pure and wholesome about America, and many would say this doesn’t exactly line up with that.”

Clark nodded. “There are those who would question whether you should still be a role model. But there are also those who would argue you’re a better one for being honest. As for your other point, I believe a person should come out in their own time and on their own terms, but coming out should be your ultimate goal, for your own peace of mind if nothing else.”

“I guess that’s a good point. I know some people will decide they hate me, or stop respecting me – of course people like that never really liked or respected me to begin with, so to hell with them.” He and Clark shared a smirk. “I just need my teammates to still follow my lead, and …”

“And what?”

Steve felt ashamed as he did it, yet his eyes still dropped to his lap, and he heard the tremor in his voice. “Do you think people will ever forgive me for not saying it sooner, for being too scared? For … backing away from a fight?”

“Steve.” Clark leaned forward and waited until Steve met his eyes. “I’ve done a bit of reading up on the 1940s, particularly what it was like for homosexuals: jail time, mental wards, electroshock therapy, it had to be horrible. I think anyone remaining closeted back then was justifiably scared, not cowardly; that was self-preservation.”

“Yeah, well,” Steve answered, “I’ve never been big on self-preservation, especially when I see someone getting bullied.”

“Did you know any gays back then?”

“Yeah. In my day they were called inverts, among other things. There were men, women, drag queens, rent boys, the works. Where I lived, it was kinda hard to not cross paths with one.”

“But they weren’t out, were they? Not like today. They didn’t even dare hold hands in public, right? They may have lived as quietly as possible in tolerant neighborhoods, but coming out was absolutely not an option, not for them or you. Don’t beat yourself up for not kick-starting the gay rights movement three decades _before_ Stonewall. As for backing away from a fight, tell me this. When you saw someone giving gays a hard time, did you just keep walking?”

“No. I don’t see how I could’ve. They were trying to beat some of those guys to death. And the gals, they were going to …” Steve didn’t have to finish; Clark’s shudder and clenched fists said he got it.

“So, you may not have lived out in the open back then, but when they really needed you, you did the right thing.”

“Yeah, and I got the tar beaten out of me every time.”

“Do you wish you could take it back, even one time? Do you wish you’d kept on walking?”

“Hell, no.”

Clark spread his hands. “If you come out and some people complain because you didn’t announce it the second you thawed out, then they’re just being selfish and shortsighted. Everyone’s ready at different times, and I reckon you’ve had enough on your plate since you woke up. And anyone who claims you should have been championing gay rights in the forties is just ignorant of history. Besides, in your own way, you _were_ doing that. You have no reason to beg forgiveness from anyone, and I hope you’ll forgive yourself. As for your teammates, I haven’t met them, but after all you’ve been through together already I think it would take more than this to make them second-guess your judgment in battle, right?”

Steve pictured each of his fellow Avengers. Stark and Barton would undoubtedly rib him, Banner would likely shrug and remain Zen about it, Thor might wonder why it’s even an issue, and Romanoff, aside from irritation that she didn’t figure it out herself, would accept it, too. He couldn’t imagine a single one of them thinking less of him over this. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure they’ve got my six no matter what.”

“Steve, I don’t think anyone would argue that you don’t deserve, that you haven’t _earned_ a shot at the pursuit of happiness with whoever you damned well please. How many times do you have to save the world before you can kiss whoever you choose?”

Steve looked up at Clark from under his lashes. “I intend to.” He held eye contact until Clark’s eyebrows rose. “After we eat.”

Clark smiled and looked down, that adorable blush making another appearance. “Right.”

“So,” Steve asked as he took another slice of pizza, “do you think my bike will still be there when we get back?”

“Hopefully,” was the best Clark could offer as he bit into his own slice.

Twenty minutes and two pizzas later, they walked back towards Clark’s apartment, bumping shoulders and casting side glances at each other. Steve’s earlier comment hovered between them, almost electrifying the air around them. They knew they would share their first kiss once they reached their destination, but the question remained as to whether it would be a kiss goodnight, or … well …

Steve, frankly, really hoped for more. He wouldn’t push for it, even though part of him desperately wanted to; sometimes he was too much of a gentleman for his own good. But if Clark so much as hinted he wanted Steve to come up, then he intended to stay until the sun rose. For most of his life Steve had waited for the right partner, only to lose his shot with Peggy. This thing with Clark felt _right_ , not exactly the same as with Peggy, but so much stronger than with anyone he’d dated since waking up, and Steve refused to let his chance slip by again.

With a quick look around him, Steve reached out and took Clark’s hand. Clark’s surprised expression softened as he returned Steve’s grip … and had it not been for the cry for help, they would have walked back the entire way like that.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNING:** This chapter contains a very brief scene of attempted rape.

As he and Clark ran, Steve couldn’t decide which was worse: men so cowardly and misogynistic that it took four of them to feel “brave” enough to drag a woman into a dark alley; or the windows all around the alley that slammed closed, shades suddenly pulled, everyone ignoring the woman’s screams for help. In his day people would have come running from all over if a girl cried out like that, from bruisers to sailors to old ladies swinging their purses. What the hell was wrong with people nowadays?!

On her stomach, the woman still kicked and scratched her assailants as best she could, her waitressing uniform torn open. Two of them held her down while the third kicked her, the fourth unbuckling his belt. Steve had to remind himself to not punch at full strength.

Steve went for the two standing, throwing one and then the other into the brick walls on either side of them. Clark dove for the woman, grabbing a guy in each hand and tossing them into the walls just as Steve had. The men weren’t unconscious, just stunned, and getting back up.

“¡Louisa!” Clark helped the sobbing woman up. “¿Estás bien?”

The men looked around, sizing Steve and Clark up, and Steve could see in their faces the moment they agreed to fight.

“You got this?” Clark asked.

“Go!” Steve’s shield was back at his apartment. If he had it, this would be over in five seconds; without it, the fight might last a full fifteen.

“I’ll be back. Louisa, llama 911. ¡Vamos!” With Clark’s arm protectively around her shoulders, Louisa ran out of the alley, pulling her phone from her purse as she went.

A simple jab and cross put the first guy on his back. Another two came at Steve at once. He dropped to sweep one’s legs, then came back up with an uppercut to the other’s chin. A kick to the back of Steve’s leg from the guy he'd swept brought him to his knees; while on the ground, Steve rewarded that guy with a kick to the face. Three down, Steve turned to the fourth, just in time to register the gun pointed at his chest.

Steve heard the shot, saw the blast of light behind the bullet, but the excruciating pain of tearing flesh never came. What did come was a gust of wind that nearly knocked Steve off his feet, and the attempted murderer’s howls as his gun began to glow, the metal becoming red hot in his hand. Steve turned his head, and Clark stood there, his hair windblown, his closed fist in front of Steve’s chest, and _**his eyes**_ –

Clark slowly walked toward the gunman, who promptly fell on his butt, scooting back. “No! Keep away from me, you goddamned freak, what are you?!” Clark knelt in front of him. “No! Don’t kill me, please!” Clark raised a hand and flicked the guy’s forehead – flicked him! – and he fell over unconscious as if Clark had decked him.

Clark remained on his knees, his back to Steve, hanging his head. “I didn’t know he had a gun,” he finally said, his voice low. “I was so worried about Louisa – she’s home, by the way, this is her building – I forgot to check. I should have checked. I’m sorry. If, if I hadn’t gotten back out here in time … Are you alright?”

Steve knelt beside him and pried open Clark’s hand. There, flattened from impacting Clark’s palm, was the bullet that had nearly ripped through Steve’s heart.

“How did you do that?”

Clark swallowed. “I can do things that other people can’t.”

“Yeah, I noticed. You didn’t answer my question.”

Clark changed the subject. “Louisa called the police. This isn’t the best neighborhood, but they will show up eventually. I’ll stay here with these four until they do.” He looked at Steve. “You should go.”

“Go?”

“If the cops only find me here, it’ll be nothing more than a police report, but if they find Captain America here, SHIELD and the press will follow.”

“I’m not going anywhere, not until I get some answers.”

“Steve,” Clark began as he pocketed the bullet and shoved the gun down the back of his pants, “you’ve been fearless with me tonight, and I mean before these jerks attacked Louisa. But they’ll want to know what you’re doing out here with me, and I don’t think you’re ready for the whole world to ask questions about us just yet. And you’ve just seen why I don’t need that kind of attention.”

Unwilling to admit Clark may have a point, Steve changed the subject this time. “What are you going to do with the gun?”

“Throw it in the harbor. I’m pretty sure Malik doesn’t have a permit for this, so he won’t report it missing.”

“You know this guy?”

“I live here, I know all of them.”

Steve gestured to the prone gunman. “And what do you think Malik’s going to tell them about you?”

“Nothing anyone would believe,” Clark answered, examining Steve, “unless you intend to back him up.” Then, when Steve didn’t answer immediately, Clark looked away. “Alright. I understand. Time to move again.”

“What?”

“I’ve had to do it before.”

“Clark –”

“I only ask that you give me time to warn Pete and Lana, so they can decide what they want to do. And if you can, please, please don’t lead SHIELD to my friends. They don’t deserve to have the government coming down on them just because they know me.”

“Give me your key.”

“I – what?”

Steve stood up. “Like I said, I’m not leaving without answers. You don’t want me on-scene when the cops come, fine. I’ll be waiting for you at your apartment, and when you finish up with these punks we’re going to talk.”

“You’re … trusting me?” Clark asked, in the tone of someone who’d witnessed a miracle.

“I’m trying to.”

Clark got up, staring at him. Steve realized it was the first time he’d really seen Clark without his glasses; he must have taken them off before he did that … _thing_ with his eyes. Moments before, they’d flared red; now, even in the darkened alley, his eyes shone a very bright, unearthly blue.

Steve geared up for an argument, but Clark reached into his pocket, weighed the key in his fist, then tossed it to Steve. With a curt nod, Steve finished the walk to Clark’s apartment alone.

So, Clark was an Enhanced, and a multiple-powered one at that. Strength, speed, invulnerability, something Steve could only describe as heat vision, and who knew what else. Steve didn’t know all the ins and outs of SHIELD, but he’d heard of the Index, a list of closely monitored people either forbidden from using their powers or ordered to use them for special ops – either way they belonged to SHIELD for the rest of their lives. They had to check in like ex-cons on parole, their movements and activities forever watched, their opportunities in life influenced and even manipulated to serve SHIELD’s purposes. In a world with beings like the Hulk, Steve understood the urge to tighten the reins on powered people. But Steve also knew that kind of thinking led to the Japanese-Americans’ internment during the war; it was dead wrong seventy years ago, and still wrong now. Maybe some Enhanced needed tagging and watching, but not all, and only if their actions demanded it.

Clark’s actions didn’t. Steve had seen the concern in Clark’s face as he ran towards Louisa, saw him do nothing more to those guys than throw them aside when he must have wanted to tear them apart just as Steve did. He'd seen Clark remain calm with Malik after the lug assaulted one person Clark cared for and nearly murdered another, saw Clark display his powers only when he needed to save lives, with only minimal force to neutralize an enemy. Most importantly, Steve had heard Clark, when faced with the threat of exposure, plead not for himself, but for Pete and Lana. It all only confirmed what Steve had decided after their first conversation on campus, that Clark was a good person, and one that SHIELD didn’t need to worry about.

Of course, he still had a hell of a lot of explaining to do.

With Clark’s abilities he could take off, go on the run as he’d said earlier, but Steve doubted that would happen. Putting aside that Clark wouldn’t abandon Pete and Lana like that, Steve believed he would keep to their agreement. Nearly an hour later, just as Steve began to question his earlier intuition, Clark came home.

“Like I said, the cops take a while to show up around here, and then I checked on Louisa.” Clark pushed his glasses up his nose as he spoke, the thick lenses cutting the neon blue of his eyes to a bland bluish-grey. “She’s shaken, and I think I’ll start showing up at the diner near the end of her shifts to walk her home for a while, but she’ll be fine. You want something to drink?”

“No, thanks. I didn’t wait here an hour for a drink, Clark. Start talking.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Superman fans will probably notice several Easter eggs sprinkled throughout this story: obscure mentions, references to familiar scenes, and heavy influences of certain TV shows and comic books on my Clark’s character and backstory. With this chapter, however, I basically lifted an entire sequence from a book, and I want to own up to that. The story of Old Man Colder, while I did tweak it and paraphrase it into my own words, came from _Superman: Unchained_ by Scott Snyder.

Clark’s entire apartment could fit in Steve’s living room. He had broken windows, graffiti on his walls, and an air mattress in the corner by way of a bedroom. Steve didn’t care about any of it right then.

“If you think I’m leaving here without answers, think again.” Only Clark’s warning about paper-thin walls and nosy neighbors kept Steve from yelling.

“I’m not saying you should leave with no answers, I’m saying I can’t tell you everything.” For a bulletproof man, Clark looked pretty nervous.

“I could get in big trouble for not reporting you, Clark. I think I’ve proven you can trust me.”

“And are you about to share all your most personal, closely protected secrets with me, a man you’ve only recently met?”

Steve’s anger, which always seemed right on the surface lately, flared up. “I came out to you! I think I’ve answered that question!”

Clark sighed deeply and hung his head. “I know, and it means a lot to me that you trusted me, it does. I know that was huge for you. But what you’re asking now … is bigger than that. I haven’t even been able to talk to anyone about this since Ma died.”

“You mean Pete and Lana don’t know?”

“They don’t know … everything. No one does now, except me.” In that moment, everything about Clark, from his expression to his voice to his posture, spoke of exhaustion and loneliness, like his secrets had weighed him down all his life. “You have to understand, Steve, I’ve had it drilled into me my entire childhood to keep this quiet, and every time – and I do mean _every_ time – I tried to tell someone, or let them see what I can do, it did not go well. So to demand that I just open up like a book and tell you everything … but it’s not often I find someone willing to take a leap of faith in me like you did tonight. Can we … can we take this part slowly?”

“Fine.” Steve found a spot on the floor, since there was no furniture, and beckoned Clark to join him. “How about this: I ask questions, and you tell me what you can. If we get to something you don’t want to discuss, say so, but don’t abuse that, and whatever you do don’t lie to me. If you want me as a friend, then I expect to walk out of here knowing at least as much as your friends do. You feed me any malarkey, and I speed dial Nick Fury.”

Even in the tension of that moment, Clark smirked at Steve. “Malarkey?”

“Clark,” Steve warned.

“Okay,” Clark agreed, “I can do that. I haven’t been able to talk to anyone about this for a long time. I’d … like to talk with you.”

“Then let’s start. Do you have any other abilities?”

“X-ray vision. Well, the entire electromagnetic spectrum, really.”

“You can see through things?”

“Yes, and in case you’re wondering, because it’s usually the first thing people ask, no, I haven’t looked through your clothes, despite the temptation.”

Steve gave Clark another warning look, but didn’t quite pull it off. “Anything else?”

“Sharper senses: I can see, hear, and smell a lot farther and more accurately than most.”

“Is there more?” Steve was beginning to wonder if the list would go on forever.

“I can freeze things with my breath, which comes in pretty handy when Pete wants his beer chilled or something. Oh, and, uh, flight.”

Steve felt his jaw drop. “You can fly?” 

“Yeah, that’s the one that usually grabs people’s attention.”

Steve tallied this with everything he’d seen, and wondered if there was anything Clark couldn’t do. “How long have you had these powers?”

“Since about puberty. I had a pretty normal childhood before that.”

“And then what, one day you woke up and found yourself floating above your bed?”

“More like one day a tornado picked me up and bashed me against flying trucks and houses for nine terrifying minutes, and I survived without a scratch, unless you count the three months of nightmares.”

Taken aback, Steve could only say, “I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault. After that my folks helped me practice, as quietly and carefully as possible, when each new power manifested. Pa would hold things in his fist so I had to x-ray it and tell him what he had, Ma had me drive the posts in the ground with my bare hands when we needed a new fence, things like that.”

“Have you ever hurt anyone with your powers? Has anyone died?” Steve liked Clark, but with a power set like that, a threat assessment was essential.

Clark remained quiet for a moment, and Steve could tell he wanted to look away, but he held Steve’s gaze. “Once.”

“What happened?”

“When I was fifteen, a farmer back in Smallville, Jed Colder – we kids called him ‘Old Man Colder,’ but he was ‘Crazy Colder’ to most folks – spotted me on top of his silo. Pete had dared me to jump off into the haystack below. I slipped, I was falling, and then I wasn’t – I floated in midair. Colder decided I was a demon, got his shotgun and went to our farm. I found him holding the gun on my ma, trying to make her admit her child was the devil.”

Steve imagined finding someone pointing a gun at his mother, and the only fathomable response. “So you killed him?”

“Actually, I saved his life.” As Steve sat there dumbstruck, he continued. “I found out that day, while screaming at him to get away from my ma, that my vocal cords can create a sonic blast. It knocked him off his feet, and the shock stopped his heart. I knew he planned to expose me, but I couldn’t, I _wouldn’t_ , just stand by and let him die. I gave him CPR until he revived.”

“And then what did Colder do?”

“He spent the rest of his life tending the back forty for Ma after Pa died, free of charge.” Clark managed a small shrug. “I guess he reckoned I wasn’t so bad after all.”

“Clark, I need to know if you’ve ever killed anyone –”

“I did kill him, Steve. His heart stopped because of what I did to him. That counts, and regardless of what happened before or after, it was still wrong.”

“Do you think killing can’t ever be justified?” Steve couldn’t hide the edge in his voice, and Clark gave him a soft, knowing smile.

“When I’m sitting across from the war hero whose actions helped save the world from Hitler’s madness? No, I know that sometimes killing can be justified, but it will never be justifiable for _me_. I’ll always try to find another way to resolve conflicts, because I have to.”

“Why?” Steve didn’t disagree with Clark; he himself had taken prisoners of war whenever he could, and treated them humanely. But he needed to hear Clark’s motivations in his own words.

Clark looked down. “I tried explaining it to Ma once. I’ve already told you I can see the electromagnetic spectrum. Well, try to imagine seeing a living thing through that spectrum, anything from a person to an insect to a blade of grass. Now try to imagine there are even more frequencies to the EM spectrum that scientists haven’t discovered yet, and you can see living things radiate all of those, too. When something’s pulsing with life, it’s …” Clark’s face morphed into something close to rapture, “… so beautiful it’s beyond words. And when it dies, the lights and colors and sounds and smells and tastes fade, and what remains is …” Clark’s face fell, “… empty. The idea that I could be responsible for extinguishing that beauty, in anyone or anything, it’s –” Clark shook his head. “I just couldn’t live with myself. Not even with Old Man Colder.”

Steve knew exactly how many lives he had taken, every soldier, both Nazi and Chitauri. He didn’t memorize his body count for bragging rights, it was seared into his brain, unforgettable. He’d never once doubted the necessity of killing them, and he never would, but he wondered if he might have felt differently if he could see things, literally see them, as Clark did. 

“Did you say ‘sounds and smells and tastes’?” Steve asked.

Clark smiled again. “Yes, all of my senses react to the radiation around me, and life … it sounds like music played with instruments that haven’t been invented yet. It looks like a painting in colors no one’s ever seen before. In fact all of the information coalesces into a kind of art form, at least to me.” Clark took in Steve’s face and sighed, his smile understanding. “Yeah, Ma didn’t quite get it, either.”

This was getting a bit above Steve’s pay grade, so he brought things back down to brass tacks. “So when do you use your powers? What do you do with them?”

Clark bent his head, but Steve could still see the shame in his face. “I … don’t use them, at least not nearly as much as I want to. Ma and Pa were desperate to protect me, to keep the government from showing up and taking their boy away, and the best way to do that was to keep my abilities secret. Now here I am, years later, and not much has changed, I want to protect my loved ones just like my folks protected me, and the best way to do that is to just blend in. But I want to help people, I … do you have any idea what it’s like to live here? To hear people being attacked, people suffering, all around me, and hesitate to help them because of the repercussions? Every day and night I stop things like what happened to Louisa by moving so fast that no one sees me, but there’s so much more I could do to help if I didn’t have to devote so much energy to hiding. And still I’m always scared that if I keep it up eventually SHIELD, or someone worse, will catch on to me anyway.”

“Is that why you weren’t with us in Manhattan when Loki attacked?” Steve didn’t mean to say it, didn’t even know the words were on his tongue until they were out, but in that moment his entire opinion of Clark hinged on whether he hid under his bed that day.

“I _was_ out there, Steve.”

Steve’s face hardened. “I think I’d remember a flying strongman with glowing red eyes swooping in to help us.”

“Not if I stayed with the civilians, grabbing them and moving fast to get them out of harm’s way – fast enough, as it turned out, that no one really saw me.”

“You –” Steve stood up. “Dammit, we could have used your help in the fight, Clark! Those things killed over two thousand people and injured four thousand more!”

Clark stood as well, but as angry as Steve felt, that’s how calm Clark remained. “You didn’t need another big gun in the sky nearly as much as the people on the ground needed a helping hand, and haven’t you ever thought about how low those numbers are? There are over 70,000 people per square mile of Manhattan; the casualties should have been in the hundreds of thousands at least. Instead, about that many people were snatched out of buildings or their cars and suddenly found themselves in basements and subways and hospitals, or a hundred miles away from the battle.”

“I … remember hearing about that,” Steve realized. “Those people couldn’t explain how they were moved beyond vague descriptions of feeling somebody grab them, and SHIELD investigated but came up empty. There were even Internet rumors for a while about some secret weapon ‘seventh Avenger’ that the government kept under wraps. That was you?”

Clark nodded. “Please believe me, Steve, I wanted to fight alongside your team, in full view, without giving a damn who saw. But I didn’t notice Manhattan that day because of a portal in the sky; it was the sound of a million New Yorkers screaming all at once that got my attention. And when I got there, it wasn’t the Chitauri flying around that terrified me, it was the scene below them: people suffocating under buildings that had collapsed around them, or with limbs crushed under cars that had been blown sky high and fell on them, or screaming because an explosion left them covered in third-degree burns, and so much worse. As far as I’m concerned my purpose that day, my _only_ purpose, was to help those people, and ensure as many as possible didn’t suffer a similar fate. Besides, I seem to recall the Avengers kicking ass out there just fine, without needing a lick of help from me.”

“And you risked exposing yourself to the world, despite all your parents’ warnings, after hiding your entire life. You might as well have waved hello to SHIELD that day.”

“Oh, trust me, that was never far from my mind. But I think if Ma and Pa could have seen what happened that day they would have understood. Pete and Lana might never have spoken to me again if I hadn’t intervened. And,” Clark admitted, “I’d have had a hard time facing myself in the mirror if I’d stayed at home.”

Steve believed him. He didn’t consider himself an expert at detecting liars, but he knew his own gut, and it told him to trust Clark. His eyes hid nothing; Steve wasn’t even sure that Clark knew how to lie, at least not effectively. Though one question remained.

“How did you get your powers?”

Clark’s eyes shuttered, and while his body didn’t move, Steve knew he’d tensed up. Steve braced for a lie, but instead Clark said, “I can’t, Steve. I can’t talk about that. Pete and Lana don’t know, either. Only my parents and I did.”

“Will you ever be able to tell me?”

Clark shook his head. “… I don’t know.”

As much as Steve didn’t like it, if that was the only question he wouldn’t answer, then Steve had to concede Clark had been pretty forthcoming. “I reserve the right to ask more questions later,” he insisted. In the meantime, however …

Steve had met unsung heroes before, had once been surrounded by them on every front in Europe. He saw them now in the military and police who fought alongside the Avengers that day, in the firefighters and rescue workers who pulled people from the wreckage in the battle’s aftermath. He praised their efforts in every interview about that horrible day, even above his own team, but there hadn’t been many opportunities to thank those heroes individually. So Steve took every chance he got.

He held out his hand. “Thank you for what you did in Manhattan. You saved a lot of people that day, and it’s a shame the city doesn’t know how much it owes you.”

Clark took his hand with a grateful smile. “You guys saved the entire world, and for you personally it’s not even the first time. Thank _you_.”

Since the serum, Steve hadn’t met a lot of men who could give him a really firm handshake, so he couldn’t help looking down at Clark’s in pleasant surprise. Clark’s palm, the same one that flattened a bullet an hour earlier, felt as soft and warm as anyone else’s. The skin on the back of Clark’s hand moved under Steve’s thumb like anyone else’s. Would …? 

Steve’s eyes went to Clark’s mouth, watched the lips part as Clark leaned in. Steve had no idea how the night would end after all this, but he knew what he wanted next. Pulling Clark in by their joined hands, Steve grabbed the back of Clark’s head and brought their mouths together.


	9. Chapter 9

Clark did indeed have soft lips, but all softness ended there: a strong jaw worked against Steve’s, large arms pulled him in against a broad, powerful chest. Clark’s stubble tickled and scratched, but Steve didn’t mind; if anything, he wanted more. Steve was hardly an expert at kissing, but he’d spent enough torturous years watching his best pal practice on every broad in a ten-block radius to figure it out. He knew licking along the seam of Clark’s mouth would communicate he wanted a French kiss, and Clark obligingly opened up. He knew he should slowly massage with his tongue, and Clark responded with some gentle probing of his own. What Steve didn’t know was how much more aggressive a kiss between two men could be: hands rubbed and squeezed where a girl might only receive a careful caress, teeth nipped at lips, hands fisted in each other’s hair, and hips that would normally lean away for fear of startling a girl pressed into each other here. Tentative tongues soon became dueling ones, sometimes with Clark tipping Steve’s head back, other times with Steve’s hands holding Clark’s head in place.

Steve felt Clark walking him backward and anticipated him. Breaking the kiss, Steve stripped off his jacket and sat on the air mattress, leaning back when Clark joined him. The kissing took on new fervor, the men moaning into each other’s mouths as hands slid underneath shirts and their hips met again. With Clark above him, it was the first time Steve had felt another man’s full body weight pressed into his like that, and as incredible as it felt, Steve needed something else. He flipped Clark on the mattress, enjoying the surprised and delighted look on Clark’s face and, now on top, Steve wound his hips against Clark’s in a slow grind. Clark closed his eyes and moaned low.

“You feel this, huh?” Steve huffed between kisses. “Bullets don’t bother you, but this you feel?”

“M-my skin responds to p-pressure and – _mmm_ – sensation like anyone else’s,” Clark panted as Steve’s lips went to his neck. “I d-did feel the bullet, it just, _aah_ , didn’t hurt or d-damage me. It wasn’t pleasant.”

“Not like this?” Steve put all his strength into pressing Clark’s hips to the floor.

Clark threw his head back. “God! N-no, n-not like this.”

“Good.” Steve said, heaving himself off Clark to untie his shoes, “Then if you don’t mind, I’d like to lose some of these clothes.”

A blur of motion, and Clark lay naked and spread-eagled before him on the mattress. Steve stopped and gaped at him. “Wow.” For all the times he’d seen Clark in the nude, Steve had never seen him hard, long and thick and curving toward his bellybutton.

Clark’s strange blue eyes glinted at him. “Are you going to finish, or do I have to help you?”

Steve stood up. “I can do it myself, thanks.”

“Show me.”

Steve had gotten undressed in front of other eyes before. He’d once shared a place with Bucky, and privacy was a rare luxury in the Army. But never had a man’s eyes followed Steve’s hands, studied the skin he exposed, darkened with each piece of clothing removed. Steve felt simultaneously self-conscious and eager to show more. Finally, trembling with nerves, with excitement, Steve stood there, naked as a jaybird, and let Clark look his fill for a change. Clark’s gaze went over Steve as if memorizing him, like there was nothing else in the world worth looking at. As vulnerable as it felt to stand there with nothing to hide behind, there was a power in knowing his body had that effect on Clark, that he’d captured the man’s undivided attention. Some distant part of Steve’s brain wondered if Clark got that same rush of control when he stood in front of the class; the rest of him, however, just wanted to get this show on the road.

“You got any jimmies?”

Clark apparently needed a second to regain his focus. “Huh?”

“Uh … prophylactics? Sheepskins?”

“Pro- oh!” Clark jumped up and went into the tiny bathroom.

“Don’t forget the Vaseline!” Steve added.

Clark gave him an indecipherable look before turning back to his rummaging. He emerged with foil packets and a tube. “Latex condoms,” he said, placing them in Steve’s hand, “and water-based lubricant.”

 _Oh._ Steve felt his face redden. “Do people still use the things I said, or did I just reveal how old I am?”

Clark cupped his head and kissed him. “Yes to both,” he said. “Now, tell me what you want.”

“I … asked for this stuff, isn’t it kind of obvious?”

Clark reached between Steve’s legs and took hold. The rush of sensation was enough to make Steve stand on his toes as he gasped. With a very slow, very gentle stroke, Clark repeated himself. “Tell me what you want.”

Rocking back on his heels, Steve managed, “I- I want you.” Did Clark just want to hear it?

“What do you want me to do?” Clark lightly scratched the base before continuing his strokes.

Steve gripped the condoms and lube in his hands, trying to remain steady on his feet. “I want you to have s-sex with me.” What the hell was Clark looking for?!

“How?” Clark swept his hand along the tip on the upstroke.

“Clark!” Steve leaned his forehead against Clark’s, saw himself getting pumped in Clark’s fist.

“Tell me how you want it.”

Dirty talk?! Steve had just got done embarrassing himself with talk of prophylactics and Vaseline! Why would Clark want more?

Clark squeezed, and Steve’s knees nearly buckled. Fine, damn it! Steve threw the items down near the bed and grabbed Clark by the hair. “I want you to drop to your knees and kiss it to apologize for teasing me like this, and then get on that mattress on all fours!” Clark stood back, eyes wide, then just when Steve was about to doubt himself Clark knelt, and Steve felt feather-light kisses along his length. Steve held onto Clark’s shoulders and watched. He'd fantasized about this so many times, but it didn't hold a candle to reality: the gentle lips grazing his heated skin, curly hair tickling his navel, large strong hands cupping his behind. The kisses increased in pressure, and Steve bit back a moan. A few wet little flicks of Clark’s tongue, and Steve’s knees began trembling again. “That’s enough! Go!”

Again Clark obeyed, going to his hands and knees with his legs spread wide. Steve followed and knelt behind him, his hands running along Clark’s flanks, taking in the view he’d wanted since the day Clark first dropped his robe in class. After rolling on the condom and applying the _very cold_ lube (Clark got a laugh out of Steve’s yelp), Steve asked, “Are you ready? You said you don’t really feel pain. You’ll be okay with this?”

“Yeah,” Clark said from over his shoulder. “How much pleasure I feel is up to you and me, but no, you can’t hurt me.” Then Clark examined Steve’s face. “Are you sure _you’re_ ready?”

Steve looked at him with wide eyes. “This is my first time.”

Clark frowned. “With a man?”

“With anyone.”

Clark began to get up. “Steve, I –”

Steve stilled Clark with his hand. “I’m sure.”

Clark reassumed his position, and Steve lined himself up and pushed in to the root in one stroke. He barely heard Clark’s surprised moan, because Jesus, he was in a vice! But it felt warm, and soft, how could a vice grip be soft?! And it felt _good_ , so goddamned good, and they hadn’t even started moving yet! Steve felt Clark quiver around him, and he couldn’t hold back a whimper.

“You okay?” Clark asked in a shaky voice.

“I –” His body screamed at him to thrust, but if he did – “I’m afraid if I move, I’ll shoot. I w-want this to last.” He gripped Clark’s hips hard, and shook with the effort of remaining still.

“Take it slow,” Clark whispered, his calm voice at odds with his twitching hips. “Tiny thrusts at first, then pull out more as you get used to it.”

“Y-you sure?”

“Steve,” Clark ground out, his back arching and hips rocking a little, enough to make Steve gasp. “You’re right on my prostate and you’re _not moving_ , you’re driving me crazy. Baby, I need you to move.” Maybe the term of endearment did it, or the increasingly urgent way Clark’s muscles flexed around him, but Steve began fractionally pumping his hips, and Clark immediately sighed in relief.

The only thing more amazing than remaining seated inside Clark was the friction of moving, so Steve took deep breaths and gradually stretched out his strokes until he’d nearly pulled all the way out before rocking, then thrusting, and finally pounding his way back in. Clark gasped and sighed each time their bodies slapped together, his fingers and toes curling, rocking into Steve as their hips met, like Steve wasn’t plowing into Clark so much as scratching a rather desperate itch that only Steve could reach.

Steve felt his orgasm building again. “Cl-Clark, I’m, I’m close –”

“Do it,” Clark breathed, and Steve threw his head back as his brain shut down and his body took over, slamming into Clark one last time before he groaned out his release. Together they collapsed on the now punctured and deflated mattress and caught their breath, and only then did Steve notice Clark was still erect. Taking Clark in hand, Steve stroked until Clark shot over both their chests with a cry, his eyes shut tight.

After getting a wet washcloth to clean up, and some extra sheets and blankets to make a pallet, Clark pulled Steve close. “Thank you.”

“Hm?”

“For trusting me, out in the alley, and again in here.”

Steve smiled. “Well, I guess I should be thanking you. Even _I_ was beginning to wonder if I’d die a virgin.”

Clark laughed. “Hope it was worth the wait.”

“Only if we can do it again sometime. Like later tonight?”

“Wow, impressive stamina for a man your age.”

Steve smirked from under his lashes. “Think you can keep up?”

“I’ll make an effort.”

Steve snuggled in closer. “Thank you for saving my life tonight, Clark. I never thanked you for that.”

Clark leaned in for one last kiss. “I’d say you just did.”


	10. Chapter 10

“Alright, everyone, that’s it for today. See you next week.”

At Lana’s command, the students began packing away their supplies. Steve took his time, knowing Clark would do the same in his changing room. His classmates had mostly gotten over his presence, though some seemed bound and determined to come up with new and ever more distant relatives who’d requested Captain America’s autograph. Steve did his best to remain gracious without encouraging them, but for some it seemed anything less than “Hell, no” equaled “Hell, yes.” Steve didn’t know where this new sense of entitlement came from, but it definitely ranked high on the changes in America he could have done without.

Lana bent to retrieve something, and groaned as she straightened up. Steve wondered how much longer until she had the baby; he doubted she’d make it to the end of the semester. The gentleman in him bristled that he didn’t rush over to help her, but nowadays that might earn him a lecture on treating women like weaklings. Heck, Peggy didn’t much appreciate assistance, either, but that was just one more thing that made her rare and wonderful. Steve didn’t quite get that same vibe from the women who snapped at him now for holding open a door.

A pencil bounced across the floor this time, and Steve was out of his seat before he could help himself. Before Lana could even finish sighing, Steve offered the pencil to her.

“Thank God,” Lana said. “If I bent down one more time, I swear, I wasn’t getting back up!”

Steve chuckled. He’d done quite a bit of that lately. “I was beginning to think chivalry was dead, or had been killed by modern women.”

“Chivalry without an ulterior motive is dead, killed by sleazy men,” Lana retorted. “Besides, it depends on which woman you talk to. Right now, I’d take a back or foot rub from a stranger on the street if he offered.”

“Pete doesn’t – I’m sorry, I shouldn’t pry.”

“He does, but it’s not like Clark’s. My usual masseuse, however, has been a bit busy lately.” She gave Steve a knowing look.

Steve blushed. Having other people know about him and Clark still took some getting used to, but of course Clark had told his best friends. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be, I’ve never seen him so happy, not since … well, not since Mrs. Kent was around. Hey, did Clark ever tell you she used to win the blue ribbon for her apple pies at the county fair every year?”

“Except the year she adopted me,” Clark added, joining the conversation. “She didn’t even enter. I reckon she had her hands full. So, I hear you’ve missed me?”

“You mean you eavesdropped with that freaky super-hearing of yours? Yes, Clark, I may need to negotiate with Steve for some time with those magic hands of yours.” Lana laughed as she got matching blushes from both of them.

“Okay, I’ll call you,” Clark said, “we can –”

“Wait,” Lana interrupted, “you have a phone? I’ve been on you for months to get one, you kept saying you couldn’t afford one!”

“I, well,” Clark squirmed and shot Steve a look, “I have a burner phone now.”

Lana looked at Steve with new respect. “I see Mr. Magic Hands isn’t the only one casting a spell here.” Steve thought his legs might give out from all the blood rushing to his head.

“Okay, Lana, you’re now officially as bad as your husband,” Clark said. “We’re going. See you next week.”

“I’m starting to see why they’re a good match,” Steve said as they left the classroom, making Clark laugh. Steve would never admit it, but moments where he made Clark laugh were fast becoming the best parts of his day.

As usual, Clark’s face lit up like a kid in a candy store as they approached Steve’s bike, or “the Harley,” as Clark always called it. “Clark, why do I get the feeling sometimes you’re more excited by my bike than by me?”

“My ma would never let me ride one of these,” Clark said, still staring at the bike like it was made of gold. “She was afraid I’d get hurt.”

“Was this before or after she found out you were bulletproof?” Steve made sure to rev the bike over the last word in case anyone stood within earshot.

“Didn’t matter. She was my ma, she’d decided motorcycles were dangerous, and she didn’t want her baby on one. Of course,” he added as he straddled the bike, “that just made me want to ride one all the more.”

Steve smiled, something else he’d done a little more of lately. “Well, hopefully Mrs. Kent can forgive me for corrupting her son.”

Clark’s powerful arms wrapped around him, and he felt Clark’s lips on the back of his neck. “Oh, I'm sure she would, considering she had a crush on you herself.”

“Excuse me?” Steve could easily hear Clark over the rumbling engine; he just didn’t believe what he’d heard.

“I had to do a high school assignment on World War II once, so I asked Ma about it, and when she talked about you she got this little grin and her heart rate picked up.”

“That’s both flattering and weird.”

“You want weird? When do you think _my_ crush on you started?”

Steve would have twisted around to look at Clark if he weren’t driving.

“Is this the first time someone’s pointed out that several generations have crushes on Captain America?” Clark asked.

“The first time it’s been pointed out like this. So you’re telling me I’m your childhood crush?”

Steve’s skin tingled as Clark’s stubble tickled the back of his neck. “For what it’s worth, you’re living up to every fantasy and then some.”

Steve loved riding his bike, with the wind beating his face and roaring in his ears, it almost felt like flying. Feeling Clark pressed up against him from behind, Clark's body leaning with him on turns, Clark's heart beating against his back, knowing Clark thrilled at every moment he spent on the bike, somehow made the experience even better.

“So, I was thinking,” Steve began, once they’d pulled up in front of Clark’s building, “maybe sometime we could spend the night at my place.”

A pause, then, “Has mine already lost its charm?”

“No, but mine has a shower you can actually fit in. Come to think of it, we could both fit in there.”

“While I must admit that’s a good sales pitch, I’m afraid I have to pass.” Clark swung his leg off the bike and headed inside without a backward glance.

Steve waited until the apartment door closed behind them. Somehow he sensed this would become a conversation they’d rather have in private. “Why?”

Clark, flipping through take-out menus, kept his back to Steve. “I just think maybe we have more privacy here.”

“You’re the one who warned me about thin walls and nosy neighbors around here, remember? At least at my place you don’t hear it every time your neighbor sneezes.”

“I know, but no one around here recognizes you as Captain America, probably because this is the last place they’d expect to see you. We can relax here.”

“Yeah,” Steve joked, “I think we both remember how relaxed I was last night when I woke up to that cockroach crawling on my forehead.”

“Well, I’m sure you have some bugs of your own,” Clark muttered.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Now Clark did turn to look at him. “Every time I come home since I met you, I check my place for bugs, for cameras or microphones, for surveillance equipment. There’s nothing yet, and I think that’s in no small part because we haven’t been flaunting ourselves around Manhattan or any place where people see you all the time, where they expect to see you, where they know your face even without the costume. People who would naturally be curious about anyone with you.”

Steve frowned. “Are you saying we’re hiding out here? Not what I’d expect from a guy with pride beads around his wrist.”

Clark’s eyes narrowed behind his lenses. “I’m saying I’m not stupid. SHIELD found you in the ice, revived you, helped you acclimate to this time period, even sent you into battle that day. Regardless of whether you’re on their payroll or not, you’re –”

“What, their property? Yeah, they did all that. They even pay for my apartment. I owe them a lot, I acknowledge that, but as far as I remember I didn’t sign any contracts. I don’t belong to them, Clark.”

“I know, but the fact remains that if I end up on SHIELD’s radar because of my association with you –”

“Association?” Steve was working now to not get riled up. “Is that what this is?”

“– and they find out about me,” Clark spoke over him, “then everyone who’s ever loved me, protected me, even met me, could end up in a lot of trouble. I can’t let that happen. Pete and Lana have been through enough over me.”

Steve heard at least one topic in that statement he’d want to address later. “Clark, I’ve been looking into how SHIELD runs their Index. Unless the Rosses have been helping you commit crimes, SHIELD won’t come down on them or anyone else who’s known you. You don’t need to worry for their safety.”

Clark still didn’t look convinced. “Clark, what aren’t you telling me?” Steve asked.

“Only the same thing I didn’t tell you last time.”

“All this paranoia is coming from how you got your powers?”

“And from me dating an Avenger. I’ve kept a low profile my entire life, Steve, and now I go and get involved with someone famous, someone SHIELD already has a vested interest in. Sometimes I think I may as well grab a megaphone and yell at the world to take a closer look at me.” Clark sighed. “I suppose I should have warned you there may be the occasional freakout about this whole situation.”

Steve moved in closer and wrapped his arms around Clark’s waist. “Look, I don’t know if SHIELD is watching or following me, I wouldn’t put it past them, but I’m not going to stop living just because I might have an audience. I know you have more to lose, and I can’t ask you to take that gamble, but I hope you won’t stop living, either, just like you won’t stop helping people.”

“I’ve always worried about getting caught, Steve, I’ve told you that, and I probably always will. People have tried to expose me, blackmail me, even kill me. I can count on one hand the people I can trust and still have fingers left. But you … when you kept my secret and wanted _nothing_ in return, and you weren’t afraid of me … Steve, you don’t know how rare you are. Even if we hadn’t become, well, intimate, you’d still be one of the most significant people in my life. You …” Clark looked at him like Steve had just walked on water or something, and Clark’s face settled as he reached a decision. “You’re worth the risk.”

Steve had met many people, soldiers and civilians alike, willing to take a risk for Captain America, to fight and die on his command, or just believe everything would be alright because he said so. Very few had ever put themselves in harm’s way on the belief that plain old Steve Rogers was worth it. But just as Bucky didn’t hesitate to follow his runty friend into every scrap with a bully, Clark had decided to stand beside Steve even under threat of losing his treasured anonymity. Clark didn’t think Steve could save him from SHIELD, and didn’t need promises of a happy ending that Steve couldn’t keep. Clark just needed Steve to be … well, Steve.

Clark leaned in for a kiss, and Steve eagerly met him. He tangled his hand in Clark’s hair while the other roamed his back before finally moving below Clark’s belt. The part of Steve that still operated by 1940s etiquette hoped he wasn’t being too forward; the part that had adapted to 21st century norms of behavior cupped Clark’s backside like he’d waited his whole life to do it, which in a way he had. Judging by how Clark moaned into his mouth and pulled him closer, Steve didn’t think he minded.

Clark also rubbed himself against Steve’s thigh, and from the feel of it he already stood at full attention. Since they’d become “intimate,” as Clark put it, their acts had focused on Steve’s pleasure first, whether he went in through Clark’s mouth or rear, and then afterwards he’d give Clark a hand, so to speak. Clark never complained, and judging from how he popped his top every time, Steve guessed Clark was one of those who liked it that way. Their arrangement had certainly suited Steve fine thus far, but the erection pressing into his thigh made him wonder now if Clark ever wanted to pitch sometimes. Steve imagined himself taking it from behind like Clark did, and a rush of nerves pulled him out of the kiss.

“Steve? You okay?” Clark asked.

“Sorry,” Steve couldn’t meet his eyes. Okay, so turning over for Clark wasn’t an option, but … maybe …

Steve unbuckled and opened Clark’s jeans, and slid them and the underwear to Clark’s ankles as Steve sank to his knees. He’d touched Clark countless times already, and had many opportunities to study him, but his intentions now somehow made the experience new again. He ran his finger along the underside, then followed with his tongue. It tasted like Clark, just more … concentrated, somehow.

“S-Steve?” Clark had finally caught on that this wouldn’t be just another handjob.

Steve tried to remember all the things Clark did for him. He moistened his lips, used them to cover his teeth, closed his mouth over the tip, and suctioned his cheeks while flicking his tongue. Clark threw his head back, connecting with the wall with sledgehammer force. Steve heard the drywall crack and he stopped. “Clark? You okay?”

Clark’s wide eyes looked down at him. “Are you kidding? Don’t stop.”

“We’re not going to go through the wall, are we?”

Clark looked behind him, surprised at the damage he’d done. “Oh. Um, okay, let’s lie down. I’ll try not to put a hole in the floor.” Clark got rid of the rest of his clothes along the way, perhaps a little faster than the average person; he untied and removed his shoes in less than a second.

“You seem eager,” Steve smiled.

“Just very cooperative,” Clark said. “Think of it this way, this is the one time I won’t bug you to talk dirty.”

Steve rolled his eyes as he joined Clark on the pallet and got back to his task. His neck felt awkward in this position, but his knees certainly felt better. This time Steve brought his hand into it, stroking towards Clark’s stomach as he pushed his mouth down as far as he could go, which as it turned out was barely halfway – probably why this kind of thing was called “half and half” back in his day – then stroking up as he pulled his mouth back to the tip. Clark gasped and sighed deeply from somewhere above, but he kept his hips still and his hands away. Fairly sure he had the hang of it now, Steve picked up the pace, and Clark’s breathing followed.

Steve’s own erection softened and hardened again in his pants as he worked, but he didn’t worry about that. He just wanted Clark to finish, wanted to watch this shy young man come apart under him. Steve began to see the appeal of this, of knowing you could take a huge, powerful man and command his full attention, make him desperate and needy and completely at your mercy, turn him into putty in your hands. No wonder some girls from the old neighborhood were willing to risk their reputations to “go south” for their sweethearts. This so-called passive role put Steve completely in charge.

Something salty hit Steve’s tongue, but Clark didn’t seem like he’d reached the peak yet – a precursor, Steve supposed, so he kept going. Clark had more trouble keeping still now, squirming on the pallet, though he still didn’t buck up into Steve’s mouth, and his sighs had sound behind them. Steve knew he personally didn’t like teeth, but Clark was bulletproof, and maybe if Steve was very gentle and careful …

One light scrape, and Steve’s mouth got another burst of salt as Clark moaned loud. For some reason Clark crooked his arm and threw it over his eyes, grabbing his wrist to keep the arm in place. Steve covered his teeth again, but after several strokes he bared them for another scrape, earning more salt and louder moans. Finally Steve went as fast and hard as he could, ignoring his complaining neck and sore cheeks, and Clark’s hips started moving to meet Steve’s mouth.

“Steve!” he yelled, “I’m coming!”

Before he could decide if he wanted to taste that or not, a bitter cream splashed along the roof of his mouth. Not the worst thing he’d ever tasted, but all the same Steve pulled back to watch the rest, his hand milking Clark dry as usual. Clark kept his arm tight over his eyes, and Steve caught the unmistakable smell of something burning. Clark cried out with every breath, his hips bucking up with enough force now that Steve wagered if Clark made contact with him it would feel like getting hit by a car. Well, that settled the matter of whether Steve would ever swallow.

After a while, Clark brought his arm down. His eyes were wet, and smelled like a recently doused fire. “You didn’t get hit? You’re alright?”

“Yeah, I moved back in time. I, uh, I’ve never seen you come like that before.”

“You’ve never blown me before,” Clark smiled. “Thank you for that, by the way.”

“Thanks for not putting me in traction or setting me on fire.” Steve meant it as a joke, but Clark’s smile faded. “Sorry,” Steve said, lying down beside him. “Have you ever … with other guys?”

“I’ve come close, too close. That’s why I keep myself under such tight control now.”

“So you never relax during sex?”

“Not completely, but it’s okay. It’d be the same for you if you were with a hu- a normal person. It’s the connection with another person that’s important, both of you enjoying the moment. Besides, I think I still managed to have a pretty good orgasm.”

Steve caught what Clark almost said. “You don’t consider yourself human?”

Clark looked at the ceiling for a long moment. “I’m not, Steve,” he whispered.

“Look at me.” Steve waited until their eyes met. “I don’t ever want to hear you say that again. So you shoot lasers out of your eyes and I don’t, so what? I’ve met Nazis, Clark, and seen up close what they were capable of. People like that should question their humanity, not you. Every night you go out looking for people who need your help, and you worry for the hostile’s wellbeing as much as the victim’s. You write stories to advocate for people, even though writing about something else would earn you more money and fame. You take off all your clothes for a classroom full of strangers just because a friend asked you to. You’re the most compassionate man I’ve ever known, and I can say that after knowing you only a few weeks. I don’t care what experiment or accident or genetic leap did this to you, you’re human, in all the ways a person should be, and you’re one of the finest I’ve ever met.”

And you would think no one had ever said anything nice to Clark in all his life for the reaction that got, Steve thought. Clark started crying, just curled into Steve and let the waterworks go haywire. He actually cried himself to sleep, something Steve hadn’t seen a fella do since the war. He knew from experience it took a lot to bring a man that low. 

Steve’s last thought before falling asleep was to wonder if Clark would make a list of all the people who’d hurt him, so Steve could hunt them down.


	11. Chapter 11

Time flew by in a kind of sex haze for Steve. Nearly every moment he didn’t spend training or checking in with SHIELD was spent with Clark, most often in some state of undress. It got to the point where any hour he didn’t see Clark almost felt like time wasted. He told himself he only felt that way because after seventy years on ice he’d lost too much time already.

He’d just finished killing a couple of hours sparring with Romanoff, or more succinctly, she’d spent two hours wiping the mats with him. Apparently having an active sex life could even affect a super soldier’s energy and muscle recovery, or maybe he was just a bit distracted. Either way, a miniscule lag in reflexes was all the Black Widow needed.

“Tell the model to stop wearing you out,” she said, throwing him a towel. Most of their meetings nowadays included some throwaway comment about “the model,” an invitation to share details, but Steve never took the bait. He didn’t think he’d chickened on coming out – sure, the prospect still made him nervous and worried, but he felt far more willing to cope with it since Clark showed him what waited on the other side. The idea of telling people about Clark, however, made him want to seal himself inside Clark’s apartment so they’d never have to leave.

“I’ll pass along the message,” he answered, heading for the showers. True, Steve didn’t want to dance around the topic of Clark’s abilities, but he knew that was not the driving factor. Steve just didn’t want to share him.

Since the day he’d woken up to find everything he’d ever known had changed or disappeared, Steve couldn’t help clinging tightly to the few things he did have left: he did his morning workouts alone, immersed in the comfort of a daily routine that hadn’t changed since the serum changed him; he visited Arlington alone, despite numerous offers to accompany him, and had private conversations with his fallen friends; and when he traveled to the nursing home for his bittersweet reunion with Peggy, no one saw his tears except her. It was all just too personal to share with anyone else.

He’d also had precious little to call his own since Project Rebirth, little that didn’t get catalogued and classified by the government or splashed across the front pages by the press. He’d even heard rumors about the Smithsonian working on a Captain America exhibit, and while he felt honored and humbled, it also served to remind him his life story belonged to the world more than to him.

Besides, everyone else had something. Romanoff and Barton leaned on each other while immersing themselves in SHIELD assignments. Stark confided in Pepper, Colonel Rhodes, and even JARVIS. Banner had the kindred spirit he’d found in Stark, and they could both get lost in their work. Thor had all of Asgard and the Nine Realms to worry about. Steve had catching up on the last seventy years, which wasn’t nearly as fun as everyone assumed (probably why Romanoff suggested the drawing class in the first place), and Clark, the only person with whom he could truly relax.

And relax he did. Steve couldn’t remember a time when he’d smiled so much, certainly not since getting out of the ice. Clark told him stories of his childhood: blowing out the candles on his fourteenth birthday and splattering the entire kitchen in frosting, discovering he had x-ray vision by accidentally peeping into the girls’ locker room in high school, and setting off the school’s sprinklers when the quarterback strutting naked through the boys’ locker room unexpectedly triggered his heat vision. Steve, for his part, talked about Bucky and his sister betting on how long Steve could go without getting in a fight (Rebecca won with two days), how he struggled not to laugh when Peggy knocked a soldier twice her size on his butt for sassing her, and how a simple practical joke involving shaving cream while Stark snoozed in his lab led to Stark installing a DNA scanner on the door so Steve could never sneak in again.

When not making each other laugh, their conversations took a more serious turn. Steve didn’t lie back and spend an hour baring his soul about the war like the SHIELD therapists always hoped he would, but he found himself mentioning the Howling Commandos to Clark more and more often, until one night he realized with a start that he’d shared stories about Dum Dum and the boys all through dinner while Clark lay on the floor, empty Chinese food boxes littered between them, hanging on Steve’s every word. Clark, meanwhile, offered stories about some of those “tight spots” he’d hinted at before: the countless times he’d had insurgents' guns trained on him and he worried more about ricochets than anything; the time he looked through the bag over his head, pinpointed the locations of prisoners, then returned to help them escape after interviewing the rebel group who held them; the flimsy excuses he came up with to explain how he'd survived a terrorist bombing without a scratch. Steve hadn’t talked with anyone like this since Bucky, hadn’t wanted to, but with Clark he couldn’t imagine not talking, or wanting to talk with anyone else.

And when they didn’t talk, they found … other ways to occupy their time. Finally able to safely and freely explore the possibilities with another man, Steve hardly ever let Clark out of bed except for Lana’s class, and after three hours of looking but being unable to touch, Steve always tackled Clark to the floor pallet again as soon as they returned. Even when the other model, Katie, showed up, she just made Steve pine for Clark, which of course led to Steve energetically showing Clark later just how much he'd been missed. Not that Clark minded – Steve had an eager and willing partner, with seemingly boundless energy that Steve could only attribute to his Enhanced status, because he didn’t think an ordinary human could accommodate a super soldier trying to make up nearly a century of lost time. Steve even suspected that Clark had energy left over, could maybe have gone on indefinitely, but sometimes even Steve felt beat afterwards, so it didn’t bear thinking about.

In fact, Steve thought, after he’d showered and dressed, today’s sparring session had tenderized him a bit – Romanoff knew she didn’t have to hold back with him, and so she didn’t. Maybe he could pass that off as an excuse for not feeling energetic tonight, a request to just lie back and let Clark run the show. That idea had possibilities …

“Most guys don’t walk around smiling after I kick their asses,” Romanoff sounded from behind him. “Your mind back on the model already?”

“I guess so,” Steve admitted. No point denying it.

“You know, you’ve been walking on air around here for two weeks – one agent swears he actually heard you humming the other day – and you still haven’t told anyone the model's name.”

“I … haven’t I?” he stalled.

“Nope,” Romanoff drew the word out, shaking her head, her eyes locked with his.

Could he do this? Could he handle the fallout: the rumor mill, the people who’d think less of him, the challenge to prove his manhood all over again? Could he invite a SHIELD agent to notice Clark, when he had a secret of his own to protect? Could Steve share him?

Could he basically spit on Clark and the last two weeks by saying Katie’s name instead?

“C-” Steve took a cleansing breath and tried again. “Clark,” he whispered, then louder and meeting Romanoff’s eyes, “his name is Clark.”

Raised eyebrows were the only indication Steve got that Romanoff heard him, then, “Oh. Damn, I lost the bet.”

“That’s it?” Steve almost felt disappointed, it was so anticlimactic. “Wait, you bet that I was – wait, who bet that I _wasn’t?!_ ”

“Pepper. Something about the way you look at Stark sometimes, like you don’t know if you want to kill him or kiss him? Said she thought she held the patent on that look till she watched you two fight.” Romanoff moved in closer. “You okay, Rogers?”

“No, I just – I just thought … I guess I’m not really familiar with how this whole coming out thing is supposed to go.”

Now Romanoff’s eyes widened. “Wait. Are you saying I’m the first person you’ve ever told?”

“Yeah. I mean, besides Clark, of course, but … yes.”

Romanoff blinked several times and looked away. “I … thank you,” she said. “Well, I guess you better not keep him waiting.”

“Yeah, yeah, I should go. I’ll see you later, Romanoff.”

He should have felt panicky or paranoid, like back in his day; he’d fully expected to. Instead he breathed a little easier, felt a bit lighter, like he had one less thing in life to worry about. Is this what Clark meant when he said Steve should come out for his own peace of mind?

Forget feigning soreness. Steve intended to head back to Clark’s place and spend the whole night thanking him for that bit of advice.

* * *

“The _male_ model?!”

Natasha couldn’t hold back a smile. “Man, you’re slipping, Clint. I always knew I could read people better than you, but I thought you could at least pick up which team a guy plays for.”

“Hey, Cap didn’t correct me when I asked, and you didn’t know either till he told you! You’re the one who bet he was straight.”

“I bet he wasn’t gay, and he has gone on dates with women since coming back –”

“Maybe he just didn’t know yet that he had other options, that’s not proof he’s bi. Face it, Nat, you were wrong, too.”

“Whatever, Barton, I’m not the one who did a background check on the wrong person. Wait till I tell Hill –”

“Romanoff, don’t you dare, or that picture of you playing princess with Lila goes up in the Triskelion break room!”

“You wouldn’t expose your family like that.”

“I’ll crop my daughter out; it’ll just be Auntie Nat in a Cinderella dress, complete with glass slippers.”

“Fine, but for the record, I rocked that dress. So, I think I’ll run the background check this time, just to make sure it’s done right.”

“Go to hell, Widow.”

“Meet you there, Hawkeye. Kiss Laura and the kids for me.”

“Will do.”

Rogers wouldn’t much appreciate this if he knew, Natasha thought to herself, not only because they’re digging into a man’s life just because he caught Captain America’s eye, but also because Rogers was a rather private man himself. Still, SHIELD couldn’t afford mysteries, especially one around an Avenger. As their leader, Rogers was the most prominent face on the team next to Stark. As their friend, he may not be as innocent as everyone assumed, but he was vulnerable, and it was only a matter of time until his seventy-year time leap blindsided him somehow. Besides, as soon as some paparazzi got a shot of the two on a date, the word on his new friend would get out anyway. At least this way SHIELD would be informed and ready to back his play. This was nosy, and invasive, but it was also the best way to protect him.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few different explanations have been given over the years for why Clark wears glasses - they're not always just about hiding a secret identity. The reasoning I've used here is inspired by Mark Waid's excellent origin story _Superman: Birthright,_ just so you know it's canon and I didn't pull this out of thin air. :)

“So, why do you wear these?” Steve ran his hand up Clark’s chest, enjoying how the hairs tickled his fingers, and traced the frame of Clark’s glasses. Twenty minutes before, Steve had ripped Clark’s shirt and jeans open as soon as the apartment door closed behind them – a reasonable response, in Steve’s opinion, to staring at Clark naked for three hours in Lana’s class. In the heat of the moment, Clark had never removed his eyewear. “Call it a hunch, but I’m betting a guy who can see through walls doesn’t have bad eyesight.”

Clark took off the beaten up old frames and examined the thick, scratched lenses. “They were my pa’s.”

“You wear them in his honor.”

“That's one reason. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, they also tone down my eye color a bit. People always talked about my eyes when I was a kid, it's not everyday you see a pair so bright they look like they'd glow in the dark. Ma played it off, she told folks if Elizabeth Taylor could have purple eyes, then isn’t anything possible? Once my powers came along, though, it made my folks nervous, like my eyes were just another clue something was different about me. Then one day Pa bought himself some new frames, and got the notion to give me his old ones. I wasn’t crazy about it; even teenagers who do need glasses don’t want to wear them. But after Pa died …” Clark’s eyes misted over. “So yeah, I wear them for him.”

“Did your dad, did you ever tell him you’re, um, you know?”

Clark smirked at him. “Steve, you’ve been having sex regularly with another man for nearly a month now. At some point you should learn to say the word gay.”

“To me, it still means happy.”

Clark’s smirk grew wider. “Well, you _are_ happy, aren’t you?”

Steve blushed. “So, your dad?”

“No. The heart attack happened about a year before I came out to Ma. I’ll never know how he would have reacted. I asked Ma about it once. She told me he loved me, and he would have come around, especially if he wanted to continue living peaceably with her. She may have been right, but I can’t help but think there aren’t many fathers out there who’d be thrilled to learn that about their kid, particularly their only son.”

Steve had to admit his own parents would have been far from overjoyed, as well. A different time, true enough, but going by the age of Clark’s parents, not by much. “I can only imagine your dad would have been proud of the man you’ve become.”

“I hope so. God,” Clark sighed, staring at the ceiling, “I miss him so much. All these years later, and to this day I can see people on their cell phones, and it'll hit me so hard that I can’t just pick up a phone and call him anymore that I have to lean against a wall and catch my breath.”

“Me too,” Steve whispered. Eventually Clark raised his head to give him a questioning look. “Bucky,” Steve answered. “For everybody else the war is seventy years old, but in my mind I crashed that plane seven months ago, and Buck died right before that. Sometimes at Arlington I feel like there’s an elephant on my chest, like I have asthma again, only worse. I look at that slab with Bucky’s name on it and I just …” Steve’s voice cracked, “I can’t breathe.”

Clark pulled Steve to him, and Steve didn’t start bawling or anything, but he didn’t pull away for a long time. Then Clark whispered, “Tell me about him.”

Next thing Steve knew he heard his own voice, almost working of its own accord, sharing how he fell for Bucky the first time Buck refused to let his shrimpy friend take on a bully alone, how he secretly loved Bucky fussing over him whenever he got sick, how he couldn’t see Buck swagger by in his Army dress uniform without bursting with pride, envy, and lust all at once.

Steve expected Clark to get jealous at some point, but instead he said, “You should see your face when you talk about him, you look so beautiful. He sounds like an amazing man. I wish I could have met him.”

It forced Steve to a realization, one that for all its weight Steve could only whisper. “I wish Bucky could have met _you_ , that he could see me with you, see how hap- how good things are now.”

“Did he know about you?”

Steve nodded. “I never said it, but I’d stare at him sometimes like a starving man at a banquet, so it wasn’t hard for him to work it out. Bucky was a skirt-chaser through and through, he wasn’t about to switch teams, but he wouldn’t bail on his best pal, either. He just worried I’d never find anybody, or I’d get caught trying. Then I met Peggy and we all got confused.”

Clark smiled. “They didn’t even have the word ‘bisexual’ back then, did they?”

“Nope, but we knew guys like that were around. We called them two-way artists,” Steve said. “I’ve always gotten more, um, excited around guys, but the occasional pretty dame could turn my head, too. Peggy, though, she was the first gal to well and truly knock me for a loop. Looking back, I believe a man would’ve had to be blind, deaf, and dumb to not fall head over heels for that woman if she gave him half a chance. For a while there I even hoped she was my –” Steve’s mouth clamped shut.

“Future wife?” Clark guessed.

“Cure,” Steve clarified. “She made me feel … _normal_ , wanting her as much as the rest of the guys did, flirting with her, imagining a life with her. Like I was finally feeling how a man’s supposed to feel.” Steve studied the floor. “I know that’s a terrible thing to say.”

Clark’s arms snugged around him tighter. “It’s not, everyone wants to feel accepted, like they’re living right. You’d be surprised how many gays still struggle to feel comfortable in their own skin.”

“… I grew up believing my … desires … were just another condition I had to live with, just more proof of my defective body. When Dr. Erskine told me he’d chosen me for the experiment, I waited till all the guys fell asleep that night and started crying, not only because I’d get the chance to prove myself, and I wouldn’t be discharged and sent back home, but because I thought the serum would fix me so I’d only want Peggy and no one else, like I was supposed to. When the serum fixed everything except that, all that taught me is I can’t be cured. Then Bucky died … and I didn’t want a cure. I didn’t want anything to alter how I remembered him, I didn’t want to change one bit of it. Those memories, those feelings, they were all I had left. Losing or dimming any of it would feel like someone stole Bucky from me all over again. Then I wake up in a different century, and these guys are marching in parades and talking about getting married and the whole message is I never needed a cure to begin with. It’s great, it’s an amazing affirmation, but …”

“You don’t quite believe it yet,” Clark finished. “Part of you still thinks, ‘Maybe I am sick in the head, but I don’t care anymore’?”

Steve took Clark’s hand in both of his. “Close enough, yeah, but I have a damned good reason now to work on that.”

* * *

Later that night, still catching his breath, with Clark splayed out underneath him, Steve asked, “Why do you like it?”

“Hm?”

“When, well, when we do this,” Steve flexed his hips against Clark’s rump to illustrate his point.

“You mean when I bottom?”

“It’s just … I mean, I get why it doesn’t bother _you_ , you’re bulletproof, but a lot of … fellas like us … seem to be into it. Doesn’t it hurt?”

“Well, yes, it can. But one ex-boyfriend explained it to me, that when I helped him relax and took it slow it felt less like pain and more like … pressure, and then once I hit the right angle it started to feel good. In fact, it can feel _really_ good.”

Steve raised his head. “When you –? Are you saying you, that you’ve …”

Clark smiled over his shoulder at him. “I guess I’m what you’d call versatile. I like topping as much as bottoming. There’s nothing wrong with preferring one over the other, lots of men do, but I can tell you from experience things can get way more fun when you’re up for anything.”

Steve remained quiet for a while, absorbing that and wording his response. “A lot of things were said back in my day about men who liked to, you know, catch instead of pitch, things I imagine are still said now. And because I didn’t want to do that, because even in my filthiest thoughts I always wanted to pitch, I thought that stuff didn’t apply to me, that I was somehow better off than those guys. But now, I think maybe they were better off, because at least they were in the game; I didn’t even have the guts to buy a damned ticket.”

“That’s … an interesting metaphor.”

Steve appreciated the noncommittal response, it invited him to still steer the conversation. “I … I don’t think I’d want to, um, try what you do anytime soon, but … are there ways to work up to it, see if I could maybe like it someday?”

“Yes, there are. We can try one now, if you want.” Steve's heart rate kicked up a bit at that, and he knew Clark could feel it thumping against his back. But he also had no doubt Clark felt the way another organ of Steve's twitched in response to his words, because yes, Steve _did_ want, ever since the moment Clark said he knew how to make it feel good. Even a man without superpowers might be clumsy, or careless, or too eager to notice they're hurting their partner. But Clark, who could bend steel in his bare hands, had run those same hands all over Steve's body, clutching and groping, and never left Steve with a single bruise. Clark, who could incinerate things with his gaze, had never so much as singed Steve, would rather burn his own skin before doing so. If anyone would be careful and take their time for a guy who'd never had anything bigger than a thermometer back there, then Steve couldn't ask for a better candidate.

“Okay.” Steve rolled off Clark. "Do you think this is something I might, you know, really get into? Like those guys who … prefer it?”

“I don't know,” Clark said, “but I'm looking forward to us finding out together. Lie on your back for me.”

Ten minutes later, Steve knew. He knew it so well that his noises of appreciation woke the neighbors. Clark suckled Steve all the way down to the back of his throat, swallowing around the head, his tongue lapping and circling the base. He used one hand to both massage Steve’s balls and tickle the skin behind them. And all the while, an oiled finger slowly and gently stroked a spot deep inside Steve that made him see stars.

He still loved to pitch, but hot damn, maybe those catchers were onto something, after all.

* * *

“Steve?”

His eyes snapped open. He barely needed more than four hours of sleep a night anyway, and Clark had proven quite adept at giving him incentives to sacrifice a little rest.

“Have you decided where you stand on coming out?” Clark asked.

“I thought you’d agreed to give me time with that. Patience wearing thin already?”

“No, it’s not that. I’ve just been thinking lately,” Clark fixed his eyes on the ceiling, “about the things I haven’t told you, how it mirrors your situation.”

Steve sat up. “You don’t say?”

“I’ve always thought gay people, especially public figures, should weigh the potential damage to their lives and reputations if they come out versus how bad it’ll be if they’re outed, because there’s a difference. Now, there are some people with severe threats to their lives or safety who just can’t come out, and I respect their choice. But others, yeah, no matter how carefully you come out there’ll be some backlash, the world’s not perfect. But if you keep it quiet until your cover’s blown then there’s this layer of betrayal on top of everything, and that always cuts people the deepest. Some may hate you for being gay, but everyone will hate you for the lies and secrets.”

“Wow,” Steve said drily, “no pressure or anything.”

“No, the pressure’s on me,” Clark said. “With my secret there really is a severe threat, it’s why I’ve stayed quiet for so long. If I tell you I risk losing a lot, but if you find out any other way I’m guaranteed to lose it all.” Clark huffed and shook his head. “When I say it like that, the choice sounds clear cut, but it’s just not that easy. I’m … I’m terrified.”

Steve took Clark’s hand, waited for Clark to look at him. “It may not be the same thing – I can’t say for sure since I don’t know what you’re talking about – but for whatever it’s worth, you’re not the only one who’s nervous about revealing himself to the world. I don’t know if you know what I was like before Project Rebirth, but it was nothing to write home about: short, skinny, sickly. Lots of people treated me like a kid, or a girl … or a homosexual, just because I didn’t jibe with how they thought a man should look. I guess it did a number on my head, made me do the occasional reckless thing, like taking on guys three times my size, or risking the Army arresting me for falsifying my forms.”

“I thought you did that because you don’t like bullies.”

“That was the main reason, but there were deeper reasons, too. Bucky always said I was going to get myself killed trying to prove I’m a man, and I very nearly did. So to stand in front of all the people who think this –” Steve gestured between them, “– makes you less of a man and say, ‘Well, lump me right in with them,’ it’s not the easiest thing for me. I know that sounds terrible.”

“It sounds familiar,” Clark said, “I’m worried about getting lumped in with another group, too.”

“... Clark, there’s not much you could tell me that would change how I feel about you, but frankly you’re starting to worry me. If you’re so convinced that whatever it is would make me walk out that door and never come back, then maybe I need to know it.”

“Yes, you do, and I … I want to tell you, more than I've ever wanted to tell anyone, I think. Just … please give me a little more time?”

“Okay,” then Steve looked at him from under his eyelashes, “but I am ahead of you, I’ve already come out to my team. You might want to catch up.”

“Oh,” Clark said, climbing over Steve so he hovered above him. “This is a competition now?”

“If that’s what it takes for you to get a move on.” Then Clark moved in for a kiss, and Steve didn’t say much else for a while. But later that night Steve spent some time staring at the ceiling himself, wondering who exactly dozed beside him.


	13. Chapter 13

“Mr. Vance is getting mugged.”

“See you in a few.” Steve watched Clark casually walk into a dark alley, away from any curious eyes. Then Steve felt the rush of air that told him Clark had taken off at “super-speed,” as he called it. At one in the morning, even the sharpest eyewitnesses would only see a blur.

They were returning from a very late dinner. Clark called it a midnight snack; Steve called it coming up for air, since it was the first time they’d gotten out of bed in two days. Clark had finally scrounged together enough money to buy a real mattress, refusing to let Steve purchase a frame, box spring, or headboard despite Steve’s argument that he should chip in since he’d spend as much time in the bed as Clark did. Well, they figured, even if they only had a mattress on the floor, they still needed to break it in.

Steve didn’t even flinch at the whoosh of air signaling Clark’s return and, like nothing out of the ordinary had happened, they continued walking back to Clark’s apartment building. “Everything okay?” he asked as Clark shoved his glasses back onto his face.

“Y- … no. I hate this sometimes, Steve. It’s like I’m living with my hands tied behind my back. Always secretive, always hidden, afraid to let anyone see who I am and what I can do, like I’m ashamed to show them, like …”

“Being in the closet?”

Clark looked at him, then gave him a half-smile. “Yeah, and that wasn’t any fun the first time around. I just wish there was a way to use my powers that didn’t isolate me.”

“Is it that important to you that people like Mr. Vance can thank you afterwards?”

“No, but it does bother me that if Mr. Vance had seen exactly how I saved him, he would have been more scared of me than of the mugger. It shouldn’t be that way, but the only way it might change is if I came forward, let the world see how I use my powers to help people.”

“But if you do that, then there goes your privacy, and some of your freedoms.”

“And even when I’ve tried to take baby steps, it hasn’t gone well.” Clark looked at his feet as he walked. “Right after we graduated high school, I took Lana out to our back forty, held her hands and had her stand on my feet. She thought we were going to dance or something, then she looked down and realized we were in midair. I’d been bursting to tell her what I can do; it was the first time I flat out disobeyed Ma and Pa’s rule to never tell anyone. She screamed, tried to pull away from me, and fell. Even when I caught her she told me to get my hands off her. I yammered on about the powers being a blessing, how I’d use them to help people, but I didn’t see what I was doing to her. She ran away, then she moved away. I didn’t see her again for years.”

“How did you patch things up?”

“Coincidence. I visited home the same time she did. I went to the cemetery to talk with Ma and Pa, and Lana was already there paying respects to her parents. We got to talking. Turns out when I took her in that field that night she thought I was going to propose – we’d dated all through high school, I hadn’t even come out yet. She said I killed every dream she had for her future that night. Took her a long time to get over it.”

“And Pete? Does he know?”

“Pete found out that day at the silo with Old Man Colder. He tried to tell his folks, our friends, anyone, but they didn’t believe him. He demanded I tell them the truth, but to keep my secret, something I was rather desperate to do after the close call with Colder, my only option was to lie. I called Pete a liar right to his face, and I lost my best friend. Years later, after he and Lana got married, she finally convinced him to hear me out. He saw how terrified and angry people were after the Hulk hit San Francisco and Harlem, and he finally got why I needed to keep my secret, how people would react if they knew someone even more powerful lived among them. Now I finally have my two best friends back. Things will never be like they were between us, but it’s getting better.”

Trying not to think about precisely how Clark tested his strength to conclude he was a match for the Hulk, Steve asked, “You’ve never told anyone else?”

“I made friends, had lovers, thought I’d made a connection. Then something would happen, just like that night with you and Louisa, where I had to be stronger or faster, more bulletproof or gravity-defying than the average human, and the way they’d look at me afterwards … sometimes it took days, or minutes, but it always ended the same. They’d reason if I could keep something like that from them, then what else was I hiding? Another reason journalism was a good career move for me, I can stand back and report a crisis, tell myself I’m helping people by getting the word out, instead of using my powers.” Clark averted his eyes. “A good way to keep my distance from everyone.”

“Hey.” Steve took Clark’s hand. “You don’t have to keep your distance from me.”

Clark opened his mouth to say something, then seemed to think better of it. “I know,” he said instead. “But I don’t know what to do anymore, Steve. My folks had pretty clear cut reasons for me to hide, but so much has changed since they passed. I don’t know how much longer I can sustain this, this sneaking around, or even if I should. It’s not enough, not for the world, not for me. We just had an invasion, for God’s sake. The world needs more from me.”

Steve bit his tongue, something he hardly did for anyone. Deep down, he’d begun to resent Clark’s parents for instilling such fear in him, fear that crippled him now, dimmed what he could be to the world, and stunted what he and Steve had together. But Steve also had some resentment left over for Clark – the man was an adult and his parents were dead, any decisions or mistakes from here on out had to rest on his shoulders alone, and Steve _knew_ Clark understood that, so what was the holdup?

“The world is changing,” Steve said instead, “no one knows better than me how much it’s changed. People have seen the Hulk, they’ve seen Thor, everyone knows there are exceptional people, even extraterrestrial people out there who help them, and so far they’re handling it okay. How the government may react to you will always be an issue, and public opinion can change, but if it’s bothering you this much, maybe you should consider that there’s never been a better time for you to reveal yourself.”

“And if or when they do find out about me, what happens then?”

“Well, I’ve already told you about the Index. I’ve also been meaning to tell you …” Steve steeled himself for Clark’s response, “I’ve been thinking about signing up with SHIELD.”

“What?!”

“I admit it has its problems, and I don’t agree with everything they do, but I think I could do some good with them. And I want to continue what Peggy and Howard started. That’s important to me.” 

“Will you tell them about me?”

“If I do join, I’ll be obligated to report you. Of course if you keep helping people like you do, it’s only a matter of time until SHIELD clues in anyway. You’ve said as much yourself.”

Clark sighed. “I know. Then what?”

“If SHIELD knows how powerful you are, my team may be ordered to come after you, bring you in for questioning.”

“That’s all, questioning?”

“Those are the only orders I would follow if you haven’t hurt anyone.”

“The only orders you would follow?” Clark raised an eyebrow. “Preparing to buck the system already?”

“I don’t think someone who only tries to help people should be stuck as a lab rat, a tool, or a prisoner for the rest of their life.” Steve smirked. “I guess I’m not much of a good little soldier.”

“You’re amazing,” Clark said, squeezing Steve’s hand. “None of the people who’ve seen what I can do have reacted the way you did, not since Ma and Pa. Other people only see my powers; you see how and why I use them. You see _me_.” Clark’s eyes welled up. “I wasn’t sure there were still people like that around anymore, someone who could just see me, no matter what they learn about me. I don’t know how to thank you.”

“You could always tell me that big secret you’re keeping,” Steve joked. But Clark stared back, searching, as if sizing Steve up. Clark’s hand trembled in his, but Steve saw the resolve set in his face.

“Alright.”

Steve felt his eyes bug out a bit. “Really?”

“Just please promise me you’ll keep an open mind. And try to remember, you’ve seen far weirder things lately.”

“I’d have a hard time forgetting the things I’ve seen lately,” Steve said. Clark’s hand still trembled, his look imploring. “Okay. I will. I promise.” Clark rested his forehead against Steve’s and let out a shaky breath. 

Steve knew people could see them, the streets of New York never completely emptied. Maybe some of them even recognized him, who knew? Clark had mentioned it wasn’t exactly the most gay-friendly area, either. But at that moment, leaning in to reassure Clark with a kiss, he didn’t care.


	14. Chapter 14

“Does it bother you that Thor’s not from this planet?”

Steve blinked. Clark had paced, ran his fingers through his hair, wrung his hands, and attempted several false starts to this conversation since they’d arrived. Now he was finally talking, and that’s what he opened with? 

“No,” Steve said.

“And why is that?”

“He’s a good man,” Steve replied automatically. “He wants to protect Earth, he fought alongside us, he saved lives, he’d lay down his own life for us if he had to.”

“So even though your very first impression came through Loki, and even though the Chitauri devastated New York, you don’t hate all aliens?”

“Clark, wh-” Steve’s mouth stopped working as his brain finally put it together. No. _No._ Clark couldn’t mean … he looked at Clark, silently asking the question, and felt the bottom drop out of his stomach as Clark nodded.

“Are … you … saying you’re Asgardian?”

Clark shook his head. “No. My planet was called Krypton.”

Steve would buy just about anything else: that Clark was joking, or too scared to tell the truth, or delusional, but not this. But Clark looked so calm, so certain, and Steve could only think of one thing to say. “Prove it.”

“What?”

Steve felt his head shaking as he spoke. “Clark, I need something, something concrete. I can’t get my head around this. Everything about Thor – his clothes, his speech, the damned hammer that shoots lightning – everything says he’s from Asgard. You, you look human, act human, sound human, you _feel_ … I need something, Clark. Please.”

“I barely have anything left from Krypton, just the blanket I was wrapped in, the ship that brought me here and –” Clark blinked. “Kelex.” Clark’s hand went to his throat.

“What’s Kel-”

 _“Ha-La, Kal-El.”_ It wasn’t Clark or Steve who spoke, but Clark’s ‘S’ pendant, in a female voice as loud and clear as if a third person had entered the room.

“Ha-La, Kelex,” Clark responded, his eyes on Steve. Clark said something else in that unfamiliar language; Steve only recognized the word “English.”

 _“Certainly, Kal-El,”_ the necklace replied, then, _“Hello, Captain Rogers. I am Kelex, an artificial intelligence created by Lara Lor-El of Krypton. I am installed in the escape pod that brought Kal-El to Earth, and I communicate with him through this device. My purpose is threefold: ensure Kal-El’s safe arrival on this planet; preserve and relay his parents’ final messages and wishes; and educate Kal-El on Krypton’s history and culture, so as to provide him awareness and knowledge of his rich heritage. Should you require any further proof, I am sure Kal-El would escort you to the escape pod.”_

Steve’s legs went out from under him, and he toppled to the floor in an ungraceful heap. Clark reached for him. “Steve –”

Steve flinched away, he couldn’t help it. He saw the hurt in Clark’s eyes and regretted it, but his mind had finally made the connection that Clark was an alien, and at that moment he wanted Clark’s touch about as much as he’d want a caress from Loki.

Clark backed away until his back touched the opposite wall. “What do you want to do?” he asked in a small voice.

Grab Clark and shake him until he admitted this whole conversation was a lie, a joke, a bad dream. Send _Kal-El_ and any other extraterrestrial on the planet back through that blasted portal to wherever they came from. Beg Clark to put his arms around him, hold him tight enough to bruise and tell him everything, one way or another, would work out alright.

Clark tried again. “Steve, what do you need?”

Only five months ago, Steve had felt the Chitauri blaster sear his skin, smelled the charred remains of bodies caught in explosions, heard the screams and sobbing of his fellow New Yorkers, and watched Stark fly with a nuclear bomb meant to kill them all.

“Tell me it’s not going to happen again. Please,” Steve begged, and in any other circumstance he’d feel ashamed of sounding so scared, but not then. “Not again.”

Clark didn’t need clarification on what Steve meant. He knelt, eye level with Steve. “I swear to you, Steve, that is not why I’m here.”

“Why, then? What’s your mission?”

“To survive. To use my powers well and wisely. To find a way to be happy. That’s all my birth parents wanted for me.”

“You couldn’t do that on your own planet?” Steve snapped.

“No, Steve –”

“Are there more of you here? How many? Do they all have your powers?”

“Steve –”

“I need to know how big the threat is, Clark!”

“There isn’t one, they’re all gone!” Clark shouted, the first time he’d raised his voice at Steve since they met. “They’re all dead. There’s no one left but me. My world is gone. I’m alone.” Clark’s voice cracked on the last word.

 _They’re all dead. There’s no one left but me. My world is gone. I’m alone._ Almost the exact same thing Steve said on his very first trip to Arlington, kneeling at Bucky’s grave when his legs could no longer support him, unable to see for the tears, hollowed out and close to madness in a way that neither his mother’s nor even Bucky’s death had done. Steve had lost the world he’d known.

Clark had lost his world entirely.

“Why did no one else escape?” Steve asked, softer now. “Were they under attack?”

“The planet exploded. The government refused to act on the warning signs, more afraid of shouldering blame or causing a panic than of dying. Jor-El, my father, heeded the signs, but didn’t have time to build a ship for all three of us. So he and my mother Lara focused on saving their newborn.”

“You were an infant? How did they know you would make it?”

“They didn’t. They sent me here because they knew I’d have powers here, a better shot at surviving, and then they just … hoped.”

A baby left on a doorstep. Even in Steve’s day that kind of thing was rare, something mostly heard about in stories. “And the Kents found you?”

“Yes,” and Clark managed a small smile. “Ma always liked to say that I found them, but yeah. They couldn’t have kids, and then one practically landed right on top of them, or ‘dropped smack dab into our laps,’ as Pa put it. They said I was the answer to their prayers.”

“So you, you’ve been here nearly thirty years? What have you been doing?”

“Exactly what I’ve told you: growing up, traveling, writing, living my life, using my powers to help people. It’s all I’ve ever done, all I want to do.”

“And you pose no threat to Earth?” Steve needed to hear it again, a third time, a million times.

“Steve, Earth is the only home I’ve ever known, and the only home I have left. Why would I?”

Steve’s gut, the same one that said Clark was good people after one conversation, said to trust Clark now, even as it roiled at what Clark had told him. He’d known Clark for two months, the last month rather intimately, and each day had only reaffirmed what Steve had instinctively known the day they met. But the fact remained that a superpowered extraterrestrial had hidden on Earth for nearly three decades and no one had known. Even if Steve hadn’t signed up with SHIELD yet, his first duty as an Avenger was clear.

“I have to go,” Steve said, trying to rise on still shaky legs. “I need …” What did he need? Steve couldn’t even begin to figure that out right now. “I need …”

“You need some time,” Clark finished, “to think, clear your head, figure some things out.” His voice was dull, flat. “Then you’ll decide it’s all just too much for you: too strange, too stressful, too scary, too crazy, you can’t live like this. And you’ll be very sorry, and you’ll swear it’s not because you’re scared of me, but –”

“You can stop right there.” Steve had found his feet. “I just got hit right between the eyes with both barrels tonight. There’s nothing wrong with taking some time to get my bearings. But don’t you dare lump me in with everyone who turned their backs on you the moment they found out you’re different. I’ve already shown more faith in you than any of them have, so where do you get off losing faith in me?”

Clark stood mute.

“Now I’m going, and yes, I _am_ going to think, clear my head, figure some things out. One of those things is what the hell I’m supposed to tell my team. But you haven’t lost another friend tonight, Clark. It’s going to take more than that to get rid of me.”

Clark’s entire body sagged in relief. It still gutted Steve to know such a good man had spent his life shunned by nearly everyone he’d ever known, even when – especially when – he used his powers to help them.

“Clark?” Steve forced himself to take Clark’s hand, and found it just as strong and gentle as ever, if a little clammy now. That same hand had roamed Steve’s body countless times, and he couldn’t imagine never feeling that again, but he also couldn’t imagine it ever feeling quite the same. “Thank you for sharing your secret with me, for trusting me.”

“It’s changed things, though, hasn’t it?” Clark whispered.

“Yeah. But maybe not forever. Give me time, Clark, that’s all I’m asking.”

Clark looked up at him, his eyes swimming, and nodded. With one final squeeze to Clark’s hand, Steve left the little apartment without a definite idea when he’d return for the first time in weeks.

* * *

Back at his own apartment, Steve stripped off and got into the shower. He knew he should have called his team first, and deep down he knew a day would come when touching Clark wouldn’t make him feel tainted, but for now he couldn’t even contemplate another move until he’d washed. Call it an anxiety attack – though Steve would stare down anyone who did call it that – but he didn’t care.

Under the shower spray, he scrubbed furiously and tried to figure out how he’d ended up here. Back in his day he worried about doing a stint at Sing Sing, or being thrown in a bughouse so they could fry his brain, or getting the blue card in the Army. But no, now he gets to live in the 21st century, where homosexuals ran the risk of playing grab-ass with men from outer space! When did his life turn into an issue of Science Fiction Quarterly?!

 _Probably around the time of Vita-Rays and men with red skulls for faces,_ his brain suggested. Steve told his brain to put a cork in it.

And he’d left Clark at the apartment, alone with nothing but his own fears about what would come next. It felt unfair and cruel, but Steve had a job to do, though he had to admit he had his doubts about doing it. SHIELD meant well, protecting the public from dangerous beings or technologies, but their style of protection also included keeping people in the dark, never knowing just how close they were to annihilation until a giant portal opened in the sky. And of course Steve could never forget SHIELD’s plans for the Tesseract, and Thor’s dire warning that their tinkering broadcast to the universe that “Earth is ready for a higher form of war.” If he handed Clark over to people that paranoid and reckless, there was no telling what would happen to him.

Clark. Steve missed him already, even while he scoured himself like he wanted to remove a layer of skin. Missed his bashful smile, the tender expression he’d get when talking about his parents, the way his eyes darkened whenever Steve talked dirty … and boy, but he didn’t need to go down that road right now, but his traitorous brain did anyhow, remembered the three-hour tease of every drawing class, the gentle scratch of Clark’s stubble against his skin, the way Clark could slowly and carefully finger Steve’s prostate until Steve was rock hard and begging for a suckjob, how Clark could take Steve pounding into him with enough force to break a human’s bones while begging Steve to do him harder. Steve looked down, and damn. How could his flag be at full mast during the same shower he took because Clark’s touch makes him uneasy now?

 _Because he doesn’t make you uneasy,_ his brain supplied, _not really._

He’s an alien, Steve argued with himself.

 _So’s Thor,_ his brain shot back, _and you can’t say you’ve never fantasized about him._

Thor’s different. He’s –

_Human in appearance? A good man? One of the heroes out there helping people when the Chitauri attacked? So is Clark._

Thor didn’t hide who he is!

 _And maybe this would all be different if Clark hadn’t, but you know he had his reasons. And give him some credit, he_ did _tell you, and he never lied._

Steve hung his head, water sluicing down his neck. He could admit Clark had been in an impossible situation, and he’d handled it as honestly as he could have. And now the next move depended on Steve.

His cellphone rang. Not bothering to dry off, Steve left the shower and walked over to the bed. Romanoff. Time to face the music. “Hello?”

Romanoff didn’t waste any time. “I need to talk to you about your new friend, Clark Kent. I ran a background check on him – and before you get upset, try to remember you do hang out with professional spies – and a SHIELD background check is more thorough than most. Anyway, it looks like both Kent’s birth and adoption certificates were forgeries.”

“You don’t say?” They’d have to be, wouldn’t they? Steve took a moment to admire Jonathan and Martha Kent’s resourcefulness and tenacity.

“SHIELD resources are drawing a complete blank on how or where the Kents got their son. My first guess was he’s a black market baby.”

“Your first guess?”

“Turns out Kent hasn’t had an injury, illness, vaccination, or anything requiring a doctor’s visit, _ever_ , including never seeing a dentist for those perfect teeth or an optometrist for those glasses. Looks like a badly constructed false identity.”

Or not being human went a long way towards resisting human frailties. “Anything else?”

“I’ve reviewed Kent’s news articles, and had on-site SHIELD agents talk to a lot of Kent’s old sources. He’s fluent in one hundred thirty-six languages and counting, but he didn’t take any language courses in college, his major was journalism, and he’s only twenty-nine years old. He could be an autodidact, genius, or have a photographic memory, but then why is he scraping by doing freelance work for small international newspapers and posing for drawing classes when he could move up several tax brackets as a professional translator?”

 _I just love to write,_ Clark’s voice sounded in Steve’s head, _make them care about a stranger on the other side of the planet, it’s like I’m helping to bring people together._ Steve had once asked Clark just how many languages he knew, and had laughed if off when Clark smiled and replied, “All of them.”

“Current theory,” she continued, “he’s an agent for another organization. Whoever was in charge of building his backstory should get fired, but if his mission was to get close to you … I’m sorry, Steve. I’ll send a team to pick him up for questioning.”

No, Clark hadn’t done anything wrong, unless protecting his privacy is a crime. He deserved better than SHIELD treating him like a suspected criminal.

“Romanoff … Natasha,” Steve began, “about Clark, there’s something I have to te-”

A sharp pain stabbed the back of Steve’s neck; it felt like a mosquito the size of a car had gotten him. Steve raised his hand … or tried to, it suddenly felt as heavy as lead … in fact his whole body felt that way, and his knees hit the floor … the whole room seemed to list to one side …

 _Tranquilizer dart,_ he thought, and then he didn’t think anything else.


	15. Chapter 15

“Rogers? Rogers! _Steve!_ ” Natasha stabbed the end call button and dialed another number. “This is Romanoff, we have a situation at Steve Rogers’s apartment, he’s been attacked! I need a STRIKE team there now!” Then another number. “Clint. I need eyes on Kent. Now.”

* * *

Steve could barely keep his eyes open. What the hell had they hit him with? The serum should have burned through it by now, whatever it was. He tried to move, but the straps on the bed held him firmly in place. He could barely feel his body, much less control it. Dimly he noticed the IV in his arm; it must be the tranq, doping him in a steady feed.

He heard voices, but his brain felt too fuzzy to pick up their conversation, he could only catch snippets:

“Tranquilizer … interfere … samples,” a woman said.

“How … subdue and nab … without it …” a man argued.

“Current … unstable … Banner’s cheap attempt … scraps those alien assholes left …”

“More than unstable … goddamn bomb … blood could stabilize the extremis …”

“Not without a clean sample,” she said, the first full sentence Steve picked up; it sounded like the man and woman were right outside his door. “We can’t even move into Stage One.” They kept walking, and Steve’s fuzzy brain could only get phrases again … something about a centipede … Steve’s eyes closed of their own volition, and he heard nothing else for a while.

* * *

Whoever took Rogers didn’t even try for subtlety. The front door hung off one hinge, the tranq dart had rolled under the bed, and the shower still ran. The agent assigned to live across the hall from Rogers was en route to the morgue; they must have sent a bullet through his window soon after sending a dart through the captain’s.

Natasha’s comm sounded in her ear. “Kent’s headed out,” Clint said, “no suitcase or coat, so he’s not vacating the premises yet.”

“Keep tailing him, I’ll see what I can –”

“What the hell?!” Clint breathed.

“What?”

“Standby.” Clint remained silent for nearly a full minute, and with each passing second Natasha’s nerves frayed until finally she called his name.

“I –” Clint began, and in her mind’s eye Natasha could see him shaking his head, “I always trust my eyes, Nat, I couldn’t do this job if I didn’t. But I just saw …”

“Come on, Clint, we’ve seen aliens, what could be –”

“Drunk driver weaving down the street, Kent just ran in front of the car and it … stopped. It didn’t hit him, it just stopped.”

“Driver hit the brakes?”

“That’s sort of how it looked, but there was no tire screech, no burnt rubber. It really looked like … like Kent put his hand out and stopped it.”

“Are you saying he’s telekinetic?” A Gifted enemy agent. Wonderful.

“I’m saying he touched the car and it stopped moving, like it was a beach ball rolling towards him or something. Then he ran to the driver and started thanking her for stopping in time. He said it over and over, and loudly, too.”

“How fast was the car moving?”

“Fifty-five miles per hour. He should have bounced off the hood.”

A Gifted enemy agent stronger than Captain America, perhaps even at the same strength level as the Iron Man suit. Did she just ask what could be worse?

“What’s he doing now?”

“He helped her out of the car and took the keys. The keys unlocked an apartment building … and now an apartment … and he’s putting the woman to bed. She nearly mowed him down, and he’s escorting her home to sleep it off. I swear to God, he’s even tucking her in!”

A … _nice_ Gifted enemy agent? Natasha looked again around the apartment. Wet bare footprints tracked from the shower to the bed where Rogers’s phone lay, and a puddle of water stood where Rogers’s body must have hit the floor. No wet towels anywhere, and the drawers and closet looked undisturbed. Conclusion: Rogers wasn’t even dressed when they took him.

She felt a surge of anger, and she didn’t care if Kent could pick up Thor’s hammer with one hand and rescue a kitten up a tree with the other. If Rogers was hurt she’d _find_ a way to kill this son of a bitch. “Where’s he now?”

“Back on the move, headed into a diner.”

“Give me the address and stay with him. I need to make a few calls.”

Twenty-five minutes later, Natasha strolled into the diner in civilian clothes, the slightly flared sleeves of her jacket concealing her Widow’s Bite bracelets, and found a seat that allowed her to scope the entire place without leaving her back exposed. She ordered a coffee from Agent Jones, who’d just relieved the waitress, and watched Agent Smith, who’d replaced the cook, grill a cheese sandwich.

Kent returned from the bathroom and sat in a booth in the corner. Approximately one inch taller and maybe ten pounds heavier than Rogers, Kent carried himself like someone twice his size, as if afraid to bump into people. He also didn’t have the swagger most gym rats had when they’d achieved their fitness goals as he obviously had. Everything about him, even the thrift store clothes and outdated glasses he wore, broadcast modesty and shyness, begging the world to not notice him. It would have made for a good cover on a more average-looking man, but it hardly worked on an Adonis like Kent, nor did it match up with his willingness to spend an entire semester posing in the nude.

But for Rogers, it would only take someone clueing in to his sexual orientation. From there, having a strapping, handsome man strip to his bare ass in front of Rogers on a regular basis, then have that same man present himself as a bashful, humble, slightly awkward, “aw, shucks” type of guy, like he and Rogers were two sides of the same coin, would practically guarantee Rogers would lower his defenses. Frankly Natasha had always thought their team leader had more savvy than that, but he was still human, with his own vulnerabilities, and some operatives are just that good. Did Rogers know the man was Gifted? If so, and Kent used his powers like he did with the drunk driver, then Rogers would also respond to the show of compassion and chivalry. Damn, Natasha thought, their fearless leader never stood a chance.

Kent hunched over his steaming mug, looking like he’d lost his best friend. Natasha nodded at the two Avengers at the next table, then moved towards him. He’d lose a lot more than a friend if he didn’t talk.

“Enjoying your hot cocoa?” she asked as she sat in his booth.

Kent straightened up, and his face fell in recognition. She watched his eyes scan the room and pick up on Jones and Smith, then move to the booths and widen at Tony Stark, sitting with a red and silver metal briefcase and chatting with Bruce Banner, who calmly sipped his herbal tea as if he weren’t the most dangerous thing in the diner. Then Kent aimed his eyes at the ceiling, right where Clint likely stood on the roof. Could he hear him?

Natasha expected Kent to tense up for a fight or try to run. Instead his body seemed to deflate, and he gave her a resigned look. “Steve told you about me,” he said; it wasn’t a question. “I understand if you’re worried that I’m a threat, especially after the Chitauri, but I swear I wasn’t sent here to conquer or infiltrate, or study you and report back, or anything like that. I was sent to Earth to survive, and that’s all. To build a life, to do my part to make the world a better place. Isn’t that all any of us are trying to do?”

Natasha had a very good, even scary, poker face, and right then it was the only thing that kept her from looking gobsmacked. Was he saying …?

“I suppose I can’t conclusively prove it,” he continued in earnest. “I know my powerset can be intimidating, and after the horrible things Loki did you’re justifiably on edge. But I’ve only ever used my abilities to help people, that’s all I want to do, that’s who I am. I know that may not be enough, that earning trust will take time, and I’m prepared to work as long as I have to. But all I can offer right now for reassurance is the number of people I’ve saved already, and the logic that if I wanted to kill, conquer, or even hurt any of you, well, I’ve been on this planet nearly thirty years; I could have done it by now.”

Not an enemy agent, then, Natasha thought, tuning out the agents on her comm channel who frantically reported this new development to HQ. Another damned Asgardian.

Kent stopped and cocked his head. “Your comms, your agents outside sound as if …” He looked around the diner again. Jones and Smith had retreated through the fire exit. Stark stood up, his briefcase clenched in a white-knuckled grip. Banner stood as well, removing his glasses. All the blood seemed to leave Kent’s face. “Steve didn’t tell you,” he whispered. And now, finally, Kent looked nervous – hell, he looked panicked. In that moment, with all the other questions screaming for attention in her head, Natasha knew one thing. Kent was about to bolt.

“Don’t!” she ordered. Kent froze, already halfway out of his seat; she hadn’t even seen him move. “As you’ve clearly noticed, there are three pissed off Avengers in this room with you, another on the roof, and a team of SHIELD agents surrounding this diner with sniper rifles and you right in their crosshairs. I know that wouldn’t spook the average Asgardian, but maybe your future king has mentioned how things went the last time one of you messed with us? So if you know anything about who kidnapped Rogers, you’d better tell me now.”

Kent’s whole face changed. All traces of panic vanished, replaced with a laser-like focus. “Steve? Someone took him?”

“You don’t know who?”

Kent turned to look out the window. For a second Natasha thought he meant to pinpoint the snipers, but he seemed to look off in the far distance. Then he closed his eyes and angled his head as if listening for something.

“What are you –”

“Please be quiet for a second,” Kent said. “Every person has a distinctive heartbeat, but Steve’s beats twice as fast as the average human. It’s like one person yelling in a room of people quietly talking. But when I’m listening all over the world and over seven billion people are talking, even a yell is hard to single out.” Then he stood up. “I need to get higher.”

Since when did Asgardians have inhuman senses? “Mr. Kent –”

He ignored her and strode toward the door. Then the clanking and whirring of Stark activating his “briefcase” echoed through the diner, and within seconds Iron Man stood before them. Kent turned to watch, looking more intrigued than worried.

“You’re not going anywhere, E.T.,” Stark’s magnified voice said, “not until we get some answers. Like why do all you Asgardians, with the whole Nine Realms to choose from, act like you've got a timeshare on Earth?”

“I can’t answer that,” Kent said, as calmly as if Stark still wore his Tom Ford three-piece instead of repulsor-firing armor, “and with respect, there are bigger fish to fry right now. I need to find Steve.”

“No, _we_ need to find Steve,” Banner said, and Natasha caught how Kent’s shoulders tensed and jaw clenched. He was scared of Banner. Good. 

“And _you_ ,” Natasha finished, and standing up as well, “need to spend several hours in a SHIELD interrogation room explaining what you’re doing on our planet.”

“I’m sorry,” Kent said, and he genuinely looked it, “but I can’t do that right now. I have to look for Steve, and if you care for him, and I know you do, you’ll let me.” He turned towards the exit.

“You walk out that door,” Natasha warned, “and you’ll be an enemy of SHIELD, the American government, and the world.”

At that, Kent stopped and turned, but he didn’t look intimidated or hostile. Was it … pity? “I’m no one’s enemy, ma’am,” he said, and then his eyes hardened, “except of whoever took Steve.” And he walked out the door.

“Target on the move!” an agent sounded in Natasha’s ear comm, “Fire, fire!”

The machine gun sound of ten agents’ sniper rifles firing at once sent civilians screaming and scattering throughout the streets. Natasha knew they risked causing an incident that could cost lives, but not only did she trust the agents to make the shot without civilian casualties, she also knew there was no way in hell they would stand down even if she ordered them to – Manhattan was too fresh in everyone’s minds. She remembered Thor using his hammer to deflect the Chitauri blasters, and wondered how their Asgardian ally would have handled bullets.

Not like this. Kent moved at speeds no eye could track, twisting and turning, his arms seeming to lash out in every direction at once. The agents stopped firing, and Kent stood there, not even a single bullet hole in his clothes. Then he opened his fists, and about a hundred crushed bullets rained onto the ground around him.

“There are _people_ here!” he yelled, sounding like he held a megaphone. “If you’d hit me, the ricochets could have killed them!” Even behind their masks, the agents looked flabbergasted. Kent turned towards her, “Agent Romanoff –”

A repulsor blast from Stark’s suit at least damaged Kent’s flannel shirt, but the man himself stood there as if nothing had happened. If anything, he looked annoyed.

“You’re wasting time attacking me when we should be looking for Steve, Mr. Stark,” he said, his voice still quite calm considering all that had happened. Stark looked expectantly at Banner, and once again Kent got nervous.

“Doctor Banner, please,” he said, his hands up, placating, “I’m not worried for myself, but for the sake of everyone around us, please don’t transform. I’m not attacking any of you, I haven’t even tried. I just want to go find Steve.”

Wait. Kent wasn’t worried for himself even when faced with the Hulk? _Shit_.

A canister hit the ground, a stream of thick smoke leaking from it – incapacitating agent. Several more rained down from the STRIKE team surrounding them. That many canisters would affect everyone in a four-building radius. Quickly, before she had to inhale, Natasha took advantage of Kent’s distraction and lunged to give him a Widow’s Bite.

He cringed, but aside from that the Bite didn’t affect him. Still, she’d found a weakness, electricity. Really wishing Thor and his lightning-summoning hammer were on-planet right now, she shot a look at Clint. Multiple Electro arrows flew through the air, their blunt tips splitting open and grasping Kent’s skin upon impact. Where another man would have fallen under one of those arrows, Kent only flinched as each one hit, but electrocuting him wasn’t the goal. _Come on_ , she thought, still attacking him with Widow’s Bites, Stark catching on and distracting him with repulsor blasts, _inhale the damned gas_.

* * *

Somewhere in the North Atlantic, Steve dreamt of Clark. He’d once said he could fly, but Steve had never seen it. In his dream, Clark soared over the New York City skyline, past the Statue of Liberty, then higher, farther, until he could look down and see the blue oceans and green continents, a black canvas of endless stars around him. Then Clark looked up, right at Steve, and smiled.

“Clark,” he breathed.

* * *

Kent’s whole body went rigid, then in one motion he straightened up, took off his glasses, and turned his head east, as alert as a dog catching a scent. The repulsor blasts burned his shirt to tatters, Natasha and Clint kept hitting him with all the electricity they could muster, but suddenly it was like attacking a marble statue.

Then a sound like a bomb going off echoed around them, and the ground beneath their feet trembled. Natasha, lungs burning from holding her breath and eyes watering from the gas, saw the substance funnel upwards, caught in the updraft of Kent skyrocketing through the air, leaving behind only a crater in the cement. Her last thought, before finally succumbing to the gas and passing out in Stark’s metal arms, was to wonder what the hell had they just pissed off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even though I used maps and a compass, I must admit my sense of direction sucks in ways that boggle even my mind. :) So if I'm wrong when I say that Clark would stand in the South Bronx and turn east to face the Atlantic Ocean, please let me know so I can correct it.


	16. Chapter 16

Groggily, Steve opened his eyes. Same bed, same straps, only now two men stood on either side of him, guns trained on his center mass. A woman wearing a lab coat rushed forward with a needle and jammed it into his vein. Steve remained still, saving his strength, and focused on regaining full alertness.

“Are you done yet, doc?” It sounded like the same man from earlier, Mr. Subdue and Nab, apparently Steve’s kidnapper.

The woman sounded familiar, too. “Do you want this done right the first time or not? I’ll need several vials just to get started.”

“Drain him dry if you have to, just get a move on!”

Steve felt sensation and control return to his arms and legs, and his rapidly clearing mind began working on escape strategies. Almost there.

“Almost there,” the doctor parroted his thoughts. Steve carefully flexed a bicep to test the straps; yeah, they would snap easy.

“Alright, that’s enough, dammit!” the man said. “Put him back under!”

Like hell.

Steve leapt off the bed, the straps breaking as if never there. He grabbed a wheeled medical tray and threw it at the gunman to his left while charging the surprised one on his right. Steve knocked him out, took his gun, and used him as a shield when the other shooter opened fire. Steve shot the stunned doctor and kidnapper in the kneecaps. Another well aimed bullet, and Steve was the last man standing.

His ears rang with each gunshot, he had to shake his head to clear it. He felt the air on his skin as he moved, and looked down at himself. Great, they’d taken him from his apartment naked as the day he was born, probably carried him over the shoulder like a sack of potatoes all the way here, mooning everyone he met. The petty side of him wanted to punch each of them just for the indignity of it. Instead, he grabbed the second man’s gun and kept moving.

A few seconds of squeezing through cramped hallways lined ceiling to floor with piping, valves, and gauges told Steve he was on a submarine. No wonder his ears rang like church bells after they fired their guns. Criminey, how was he supposed to get out of here? Take down the entire crew, find the bridge and send an S.O.S.? With no shield, no clothes, and only a 9mm in each hand? Footsteps ran toward him, and Steve’s face set in grim determination.

“Okay, Clark, I admit it,” he muttered to himself, “I shoulda just stayed at your place tonight.”

The floor lurched underneath him, like an elevator going up too fast. Panicked voices told him the crew hadn’t planned to surface, certainly not at this speed. He used their distraction to his advantage, barreling through the men and incapacitating as many as he could. The crew wasn’t armed, and Steve liked having eardrums, so he settled for pistol whipping them. The sub stopped rising, and for a while felt as if it hung in zero gravity; Steve kept fighting. Less than five minutes later he held a gun on the captain, unconscious men littered all around him. A bump under their feet, like an airplane landing, didn’t waver Steve’s aim in the slightest.

Then a deafening screeching sound, a rush of wind, and Clark stood beside him, sopping wet, his shirt all but burned away, and the faint trace of knockout gas under the saltwater smell, but otherwise fine.

“Saw the trail of concussions on the way in,” Clark said conversationally, as if they crossed paths like this all the time. “You don’t do the whole damsel in distress thing very well, do you?”

“Nope,” Steve said, his eyes and gun still trained on the captain, “and in case you haven’t noticed, I ain’t a damsel.”

Clark’s eyes roved over him. “Oh, I’ve noticed, and not that I don’t appreciate the view, but you might want to find some pants. Mr. Stark is on his way, along with possibly the entire New York division of SHIELD.”

Steve chanced a glance at Clark. “And why is that?”

Clark looked like a six-foot tall, two hundred pound child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “I may have accidentally told the Avengers I’m from another planet, escaped SHIELD’s attempt to apprehend me, then flew away to lift a submarine out of the ocean, fly it back to shore, and rip it open with my bare hands in full view of everyone on the beach,” he said in a rush.

Steve could only stare at him for a moment. “You’ve had a busy morning,” he finally said.

Clark made a show of looking around the bridge, particularly the heap of fallen bodies. “You’re one to talk.”

Resisting the urge to smile, Steve put down the guns. “Keep an eye on this guy while I go find some clothes.”

“Sure. By the way, Steve, I agree,” Clark smirked as Steve left, “you really should have stayed at my place.”

* * *

Turned out that even in the city that never slept, one didn’t find many people strolling along Staten Island’s Cedar Grove Avenue at three in the morning in the chilly temps typical for late October, so the virtual army of SHIELD SUVs that followed Iron Man to the beached submarine had relative privacy.

“So, all it takes is one good-looking, superpowered alien, and Captain America comes charging out of the closet?” Even behind the faceplate, Steve could feel Stark’s smirk. “Why didn’t Thor get this reaction from you? Poor Point Break, you’ll hurt his feelings. What, does he need a dye job, you got a thing for brunettes?”

“As a matter of fact,” Steve said, thinking of Bucky and Peggy – and Tony, though Steve would rather die than admit it – “I do. And no, Stark, even with that, you _still_ don’t have a shot with me.”

Stark’s armored head reared back a bit, and Steve gave himself a mental pat on the back as he imagined the impressed look underneath. Then the Iron Man turned to Clark.

“So, you’re not Asgardian,” Stark said by way of a hello. “Where’re you from?”

“Krypton,” Clark replied.

“You’re from number 36 on the periodic table?”

Clark gave him a shadow of a smile. “It was also a planet, about twenty-eight light years from here, in what astrophysicists call the Corvus constellation.”

“You look awfully young for someone who traveled nearly thirty light years and lived here for another thirty calendar ones.”

“Kelex kept me in suspended animation until I arrived.”

“Who?”

“Don’t tell him,” Steve said to Clark. “Show him, he’ll probably love it.”

Sure enough, by the time SHIELD agents had converged on them from all sides, Stark sounded like a kid in an amusement park, his suit running every possible scan on Clark’s necklace. “There’s a spaceship?! You literally have a spaceship parked somewhere on Earth? You gotta take me to see the spaceship!”

“I’d like to see it myself,” Commander Maria Hill said from behind him, hand-signaling her agents to secure the submarine. “I’d also like to hear how you arrived without being caught on any of our satellites, how you remained hidden from our informants across the globe all these years, exactly what your intentions are towards our planet, and about a million other questions for which we’ll expect very thorough answers. You told Romanoff that you want to earn our trust, Mr. Kent. You can start by preparing for the longest interview of your career.”

“And _you_ can start by asking where he was when the Chitauri attacked,” Steve demanded, because he’d be damned if Clark’s relationship with SHIELD kicked off with him treated as Public Enemy Number One. A stillness settled over Stark and Hill, along with most of the agents.

“We certainly could have used your help that day,” Hill said, her voice carefully guarded.

“You had it,” Clark told her.

“I’m pretty sure I would have noticed another person flying around and beating up aliens with me,” Stark said, his voice tight even through the Iron Man microphone. “I definitely would have looked for you when the nuke showed up.”

“I wasn’t in the sky fighting Chitauri because I was on the ground helping civilians.”

“Without anyone seeing you?” Hill asked.

“You see that life preserver over there?” Clark pointed to a sailboat about forty yards away. “I bet I can get it and bring it to you before you can say go.”

Hill looked at him, the boat, then back at him. “G-”

Clark held out the preserver to her, the blast of wind everyone felt the only indicator that he’d moved. “That’s how fast I ran and flew that terrible day,” he said, “to evacuate as many people as possible. It’s how I’ve kept them all from seeing what I can do, how I’ve kept my secret for years. I was raised to keep my powers and origins secret so I wouldn’t scare people, and so I could have a chance at a normal life.”

“… You were the seventh Avenger?” Hill asked, not without a trace of awe in her voice.

Clark ducked his head. “I don’t deserve to be placed in that esteemed company,” he said, “but I am the one who moved all those people out of harm’s way, yes.”

Stark retracted his faceplate, wearing an expression similar to Hill’s. “There were hundreds of thousands of people snatched out of the line of fire that day. That was all you?”

Clark looked him in the eye. “I wanted to help you, I truly did. But they needed me more. No one wants to relive that day, but if I had to I would do the same thing again.”

“No, you –” and Steve had never heard Stark’s voice sound so hushed, “you did the right thing, no doubt. Thank you.”

“So why now?” Hill asked. “Why reveal yourself now? Why let the Avengers and the public see what you can do tonight? Why tell Captain Rogers in the first place?” She shifted her eyes to Steve. “And we’ll be talking later about why you didn’t come forward with that, by the way.”

“Because SHIELD doesn’t need to know everything.” Steve figured they may as well address it now. “We all saw what you did with the last powerful object you had. I wasn’t about to just hand over a person, especially one who hasn’t hurt anyone.”

Clark interrupted the glaring contest between the two. “Because I’ve been running my entire life: from people who learned what I can do, or who came close to figuring it out, or to keep from getting attached to anyone in the first place because it would only be a matter of time. What I have here, with my friends, with Steve, this is the best my life has been in a long time. I’m not running away from this. I’m tired of being scared, and I’m tired of people being scared of me. But more than any of that, I’m just so damned tired of running. It’s time to stop.”

Clark didn’t plead or weep, he held himself as he had that first day in Lana’s class: spine straight and shoulders back, any nervousness in his face balanced by the sincerity in his eyes and the steel in his voice. Hill’s eyes seemed to assess him before ultimately accepting his answer.

“Commander,” an agent interrupted them, “the submarine is clear.”

“Then let’s head out,” Hill said. “Captain Rogers, there’s a vehicle waiting to escort you and Mr. Kent back to HQ for debriefing. Mr. Stark,” she continued, glancing at his suit, “I’m assuming you’ll provide your own transportation. We’ll see you there.”

In the back of the SUV, Steve leaned in and whispered, barely moving his lips, and so low that no human could have heard him, “So, you’re tired of running, huh?”

Clark whispered back so only Steve’s enhanced hearing could pick it up. “That, plus my boyfriend was in danger, and I could hardly rescue him covertly with four Avengers trying to beat me up in the middle of the street.”

Boyfriend? Steve raised an eyebrow. “Or should I call you something else?” Clark asked, catching his reaction. They’d never said anything that official before; then again, Steve couldn’t think of any other word for them. And he’d never actually broken up with Clark. Did he really want to?

Clark was an alien, a creature from another planet; even now Steve knew he'd likely tense up or pull away if Clark tried to touch him just then. Clark also still had a lot of explaining to do, both to Steve and to SHIELD, and that trust he hoped to earn wouldn’t come overnight. But Clark was also the man who risked everything, possibly sacrificed everything, to rescue Steve, and most importantly had chosen to unflinchingly face the consequences. Steve had always liked Clark, respected him, cared for him, but tonight? Steve was proud of him. 

“I’d have been called your best guy back in my day,” Steve whispered back, “but I suppose ‘boyfriend’ works, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I'm writing this as someone who's never visited New York, so hopefully the part I wrote about Staten Island makes sense to those who know better than I.


	17. Chapter 17

A week had passed, and Steve still couldn’t turn on a television without seeing Clark – or more accurately, Clark’s blurry, darkened form as captured by cell phone cameras in the dead of night – hefting a forty thousand ton submarine out of the ocean, floating with it in midair towards the shore, and then pulling open a hole in both titanium hulls as easily as drawing back window curtains. Even with so few witnesses, SHIELD had trouble tamping down the story, and even when they made some headway a hacker group called the Rising Tide leaked it again.

The submariners gave them no useful information. They were ordinary men hired out to pilot a sub, paid in cash and instructed to ask no questions. The man and woman Steve remembered, the doctor and kidnapper who spoke of Stage One and centipedes, were found dead in their cells before their interrogations. Steve had no idea what happened to the blood they’d drawn; apparently he didn’t have the clearance to know.

It didn’t matter, Steve had more pressing issues.

Banner took off his glasses to massage the bridge of his nose. “All tests so far show he’s potentially stronger than me – I mean, the Other Guy – and equally if not more indestructible.”

“How can someone be ‘more’ indestructible?” Stark asked. “Either you’re indestructible or you’re not.”

“When the Chitauri sent about twenty gliders to fire on the Other Guy all at once, it didn’t hurt him, but it did slow him down,” Banner explained. “With this guy, I’m not so sure it would even slow him down. In all honesty, I’m not even convinced a nuke would do the job.”

A tense pause followed this. “Well, so much for sending him to the Vault,” Barton said, “not that I’m sure we should.”

“We need to find a way to contain this guy, Clint,” Romanoff said.

“In case what, he flies off to save someone else’s life?”

“Agent Barton,” Commander Hill said, “surely you have to see how bad this is.”

“No, ma’am, bad would be this guy killing people left and right. Sounds like the worst thing he ever did is keep a low enough profile to slip under SHIELD’s radar. I’m thinking Cap found one of the white hats, here.”

Steve sent a small smile of thanks Barton’s way, but said, “You know, ‘this guy’ does have a name.” He looked down at the table screen, the camera feed showing Clark sitting alone in his quarters, his father’s glasses in his hands. “I know Clark is powerful, so much so that it’s scary. I had the same worries you did when he first told me everything he can do. But then I stopped focusing on what he _can_ do and looked at what he _is_ doing, and why he does it. He’s a good man, you’ve all seen it, in your research and your interviews – most of you have seen him in action. You’re all comparing him to Loki in terms of what he could do; I’m comparing them in terms of what Clark’s not doing: actions, personality, motivation, you name it, those two are nothing alike. Romanoff, you pointed out not too long ago that every one of us is a threat, we could each do some serious damage to the world if we wanted to. Should we be judged based on that, locked up or treated like criminals based on our potential?”

“Are you seriously suggesting we don’t bother to formulate a contingency plan on Kent?” Hill asked.

“I’m suggesting that you also start talking about when you’re going to let him go back to his life, instead of expecting him to stay here indefinitely and hinting that any desire to leave amounts to treason.”

“We still have more tests to run,” Banner said.

“Tests you could do just as easily by having Clark come in. He’s done nothing that requires him to stay here like a kid that’s been grounded.”

“He’s not being punished, Captain. We would have followed similar protocols if Thor had stayed,” Hill said.

“Then you would have had an even bigger problem on your hands when Thor wanted to go home, and it would have been just as wrong to try and keep Thor on lockdown after all he’s done to help us.”

Hill’s voice chilled by several degrees. “Perhaps the reason our reaction to Kent is so strong, Captain, is because of the way you two handled this situation. You knew he had multiple formidable abilities and said nothing for weeks; if you had, we might have learned there’s an extraterrestrial among us sooner. In today’s climate, that alone could earn you some jail time. And even if you didn’t know Kent’s origins, _he_ certainly knew, and remaining hidden among us doesn’t exactly engender trust. For some that would be reason enough to lock him away just as a precaution. And before you say a word about his rights, I’ll remind you that due process doesn’t cover aliens. Containment and threat assessment is the least we can do.”

“Then think about this threat,” Steve countered, his voice heating where hers had cooled, “if you keep treating him like he’s the enemy, then you won’t leave him with much choice but to act like one. Put yourself in his shoes: all he’s ever done is help and save humans, and all he’s ever gotten in return is fear and rejection. He just neutralized your attempts to kill him without laying a finger on any of you _and_ saved one of your teammates, and for that you send him to that gilded cage you call his quarters and tell him he can’t come out unless you grant permission. This is exactly what his parents warned him about, you’re proving right every fear he had about coming forward. If you were him, how much longer would you put up with this situation before you finally said to hell with this? Clark could either be a near-unbeatable and terrifying enemy – and I don’t know about you, but I’ve had my fill of those for a while – or he could be the most incredible ally we could ever hope for. When there’s another invasion – not if, _when_ – someone like Clark could turn the tide in our favor a hell of a lot sooner.” He gestured toward the table screens. “Do you really think this is the best first step towards making that happen?”

The assembled lowered their eyes, which only helped Steve’s argument as Clark’s forlorn form glowed up at each of them.

“You’re suggesting we exploit him?” Stark asked, surprise evident in his face.

“No, he’s had enough of that from people, too. I’m suggesting something better, that we show him why he should want to work with us, instead of making him feel he has no choice. Clark’s not the only one who needs to earn some trust here, but at least he’s already gone a ways to prove his intentions.”

“I’ll take your counsel under advisement,” Hill said, and adjourned the meeting.

Steve went to visit Clark. He spent time there every day, though none of it as fun or relaxed as their days at Clark’s apartment. Looking around Clark’s luxurious quarters, complete with surveillance devices in every corner of every room (hidden, but Clark could see them), Steve had to admit he missed the rathole in the South Bronx. His heart went out to Clark again for having to live exactly as he’d told Steve he feared, surrounded by microphones, cameras, and people who seemed eager for him to pose a threat. Expecting Clark to share in his righteous anger, Steve was surprised to find Clark smiling.

“Thank you for what you said in there,” Clark said. Of course he could hear the meeting.

“I only told the truth.”

“I suppose I owe Agent Barton thanks as well.”

“He’s called Hawkeye for a reason, he’s always been able to see what others miss.”

A moment of awkward silence settled between them, and not just because neither man much cared to get affectionate on camera. For all Steve’s passionate advocacy, he was still relearning how to interact with Clark. As much as Steve tossed and turned most nights because his bed felt too large without Clark, and though Steve didn’t enjoy the long runs and cold showers he took to tame his hormones, the fact remained that since the big revelation, being within arm’s reach of Clark still made him hesitant, and Clark didn’t push. As a result, the two hadn’t even touched since Steve last left Clark’s apartment a week ago, the night Clark told him the truth.

“So, um, how’s Louisa doing?” Steve asked. “You've got telescopic vision, I figure you’re keeping an eye on her.”

“I actually went to visit her at the diner after you left that night, told her I may not be able to walk her home anymore. She’s okay with it … of course it helps that she’s taking krav maga classes and carries a derringer in her purse now. I’m proud of her, she’s building her confidence and taking charge of her safety, instead of waiting on a man to rescue her.”

“And Mr. Vance?”

“He’s a different story. He got mugged again, and went home complaining about how ‘that faggot down the street couldn’t get the cock outta his ass and come help this time.’ Oh, well.” At Steve’s look, he shrugged. “I help everyone, Steve, not just the people who are nice to me.”

Steve shook his head. He didn’t pick and choose who he saved, either, but if he were to come out he’d have to accept that many of the people who’d owe him their lives would still condemn his. But as Clark said, oh well.

“And Malik?”

Clark lowered his eyes. “He’s the one I worry for. He’s getting in deeper and deeper with that gang. He’s already gotten another gun.”

“You worry _for_ him?”

“It’s all a cry for help. His father’s dead and his mother drowns her grief in alcohol. It’s like he lost both his parents at once, and now he thinks of the gang as his family. I’m not suggesting turning a blind eye to his actions, or not punishing him, but I do hope he’ll outgrow the need for that gang before it’s too late.”

“You really do care about everyone, don’t you?”

“I want all of you to be okay. Earthlings may have just found out they’re not alone in the universe, but that should make it even more clear to you that you need to start taking better care of each other,” Clark gave him a half-smile, “with maybe a little help from an immigrant or two.”

Steve hated to sound like a SHIELD interrogator, or like he could confuse Clark with Loki, but he had to ask. “Has it ever crossed your mind to use your powers to make people like Malik or his gang straighten up and fly right?” Steve could swear he heard the cameras zoom in.

“Or maybe a terrorist, or a dictator, or a president, or every soul in the world?” Clark finished Steve’s train of logic. “Krypton was ruled by a government that had too tight a grip on the public, and it doomed the entire planet. I don’t think I was sent here to make the same mistake, to strongarm people into behaving the way I feel they should. I don’t have that kind of authority; no one put me in charge of the planet.”

“Do …” Again, Steve had to ask, “do you have the power to take over the planet?”

Clark stared at him for a long moment, then, “Even if I did, I don’t have the right, Steve. Ma and Pa taught me I’m a part of the human race, not above it. The day I forget that is the day I lose my humanity, and I can’t afford to lose that. It’s the most precious thing I have.”

Another awkward silence, made worse by the extra eyes and ears pressing in on them. Steve’s fingers itched for his shield, though at that point he wouldn’t have minded smashing the microphones and cameras with his bare hands.

“I miss the class,” Clark said suddenly.

Steve felt a smile tugging his lips for the first time all day. “You miss a bunch of millenials staring at you like a slab of meat?”

“Yeah, maybe not that part so much,” Clark conceded, “but I always focused on other things: how posing helped the students hone their craft, wondering how certain talented kids would show improvement that day, coming up with poses I hoped would challenge them. When Lana first asked me to do it I wasn’t too keen, but now I’m glad I did.”

“Even though it led you to me?”

“Especially because it led me to you,” Clark said. “I don’t regret this. I knew you were an Avenger when we met, and I accepted the risks. And even with everything else happening now, as far as I’m concerned my gamble more than paid off.”

“Why?” Steve wasn’t the type to go fishing for compliments, but the part of him that still weighed ninety pounds, that had to look up to meet a girl’s eyes, that had the Army tell him repeatedly he wasn’t what his country needed, had to know why Clark deemed him a worthy tradeoff for living on house arrest.

Clark smiled and shook his head as if the answer was obvious. “Because you’ve shown me what kind of man I want to be, the one I think I was meant to be. Ma and Pa taught me to do right by people, and that lesson is the greatest gift my folks ever gave me. But all my life I’ve settled for either writing articles about people in need or secretly using my powers to help them, and it never felt right, I knew deep down I wasn’t doing enough. Now I know I could do something more effective and far-reaching – I could inspire good in others. Through how I treat them, I could show them by example how they should treat each other. They’d see me fighting for them, and maybe come to understand why they’re worth fighting for. I’ll never save the world from things like war, prejudice, or poverty, but the rest of you, if inspired to work together, could.”

“That … sounds like quite the uphill battle.”

“A neverending one, most likely,” Clark admitted. “But so is yours, whether it’s reminding people of the values this country was founded on, or fighting for the little guys everywhere. And you never give up, no matter what crazy curveballs life throws at you, and you never lose faith, no matter how people may shock or disappoint you. You’re fighting the good fight, and you'll never stop, and that’s all there is to it. Most importantly, you inspire the people around you, whether it’s the Howling Commandos or the Avengers. You have a rock solid moral center, and people respond to that no matter what century it is. They don’t just follow you because they trust or admire you, but because they _believe_ in you, and so do I, and the world desperately needs more people like you. So I reckon it’s about time to put aside Ma and Pa’s fears – _my_ fears – and just hold onto everything else they taught me. Time to finally show the world who I really am, and be who I think the world needs me to be.”

His mom, Bucky, Dr. Erskine, Peggy. Of all the people Steve had known back then, only those few could see Steve’s worth before the serum. Steve had waited his entire life for someone else to see him, truly see him – not just the serum that made him look like a hero, but the person inside trying to live and behave like one. The Avengers saw it to some extent, but Steve knew even they’d feel less confident about following him if he still looked and fought like a scrawny kid. But Clark, who shrugged at jerks like Vance and held out hope for kids like Malik, who made the effort to look for the good in everyone, easily recognized Steve’s core values, and Steve had no doubt Clark still would even if Steve were as small and frail and ancient as he rightly should be. Clark had seen him, and found his own strength in it. 

And just like that, Steve didn’t care anymore if Clark hailed from Kansas, or Krypton, or a completely different universe. Who gave a damn if they had different DNA, it wasn’t like they’d planned to make babies together, anyway. Clark cared for him, Clark _got_ him, Clark decided he was worth risking everything. Steve could take a tiny, easy, and really a no-brainer risk in return.

Stepping into Clark’s personal space again felt like coming home. The thick curly hair between his fingers as he cupped Clark’s head felt the same, Clark leaned in like he always had, and the lips Banner had just claimed could survive a nuclear explosion felt just as soft and eager as ever. Steve drank Clark in, the scent and feel and taste of him, used his other arm to pull him in closer, thrilled at Clark’s arms encircling him. By the time they broke the kiss, both men were trembling.

“You know,” Clark breathed as Steve panted for air, “there’s one nice thing about living here. I have a huge shower … big enough for two.”

“I could have sworn that was my idea.”

“And it was a good one. There’s also no cameras in there.”

 _Damn, I forgot about those_ , Steve thought, his hands still roaming and groping like they had a mind of their own. Well, it looked like he’d just come out to all of SHIELD. Strangely, it didn’t faze him; Clark still having all his clothes on, now that bothered him. Steve grabbed Clark’s hand and all but ran into the bathroom, resisting an impish urge to wave goodbye to the cameras as they went.

Once the door slammed behind them Steve attacked Clark, sending buttons flying as he ripped Clark’s shirt open. Only seven days had passed since the night Clark came clean, yet Steve nuzzled and kissed Clark’s torso, relishing the hair tickling across his face and lips, like he’d missed this for months. Steve tried to take it slow and savor it, kissing and licking the hard ridges of Clark’s stomach, but then he’d remember that Clark could be locked in a cell, that they could easily have never seen each other again, that it could still happen, and Steve’s hands and mind would go crazy all over again; soon the fly on Clark’s jeans was broken as well, and the sound of denim ripping echoed off the walls.

Clark squirmed and panted on the tiled floor, his hands making a mess of Steve’s hair. Steve worked Clark’s jeans and underwear down his legs. He wanted, _needed_ to help Clark forget, help them both forget for a while about the world on the other side of that door, the one where they’d likely never have true privacy again. Despite his bravado when he’d claimed weeks earlier that he didn’t care if they had an audience, with the revelation that Clark's extraterrestrial Steve had reconsidered whether he could handle a relationship with Clark under SHIELD’s watchful eye. An Enhanced might have to routinely check in with SHIELD, but someone from another planet, with Clark's powerset … Steve knew every word, every gesture, even every sex act would probably be recorded, documented, and filed away from now on. After a lifetime of Steve not even letting on he was “that way,” now agents from Level 7 all the way up to the World Security Council would know exactly how much he wanted this, and that he wanted it with an alien. It was a lot to take in.

Clark looked up at him, heated eyes and a broad smile, naked but for the torn flannel hanging open and the jeans bunched around his ankles, all hairy and muscular and spread out just for Steve. His eyes went to Clark’s crotch, his mouth watering at the sight that greeted him, and a small whiff of Clark's arousal reached his nostrils. Steve could lose himself in those eyes and that smile, he could study that gorgeous body forever, he wanted to bury his face in that scent. To hell with SHIELD, he decided again; Steve had come too close to losing this man, could still lose him depending on Hill’s ultimate decision, to waste another second.

But Clark’s hands pressed into his shoulders, holding him back, with Steve’s mouth only inches from its goal. “Hold on.”

“Y-you don’t want me to suck you?”

Clark leaned up and kissed him hard. “Of course I do! God, I’ve missed you so much! I just want … can we try … I mean, I know we’ve never done it before –”

“Anything you want, we’re doing,” Steve said, and he meant it, though his backside did give a small nervous clench at the thought.

Clark kissed him again, long and deep. “Then I want you to blow me,” he said, his hand going to gently cup the bulge in Steve’s slacks, “while I blow you.”

Just the mental image nearly made Steve come in his pants. He answered by undoing them and shoving them down to his knees.

Clark smiled again. “Lie down on your side.” Steve did, and found himself face to groin with Clark, at the same time he felt Clark’s warm breath below his waistline. Salivating again, Steve dove right in, reacquainted himself with the silken feel of Clark’s skin between his lips and in his hand, the salty taste under his tongue, the musky smell surrounding his nose. He could only hum loudly as Clark’s mouth closed around him, taking Steve's full length immediately, his large hands stroking Steve's thighs. Steve had missed that wet heat more than he could say (well, more than he could say at the moment, anyway).

Doing things “vice versa” felt different, beyond the obvious reasons. Usually either Steve laid back and basked in Clark’s attentions, or he enjoyed the power trip of having Clark in his mouth and at his mercy. But like this, they were more like equals, each controlling the other’s pleasure and reveling in their own. This, more than anything else they’d done, felt like a shared act.

Any further rumination got short-circuited as Clark’s tongue flicked over Steve’s tip, _fast_ , far too fast for a human. Steve responded with some fast flicking of his own, and Clark’s humming vibrated through Steve’s entire body. Clark upped the ante with some hard suction, pressing, squeezing, almost painful. Well, the serum didn’t give him strength like Clark’s, but Steve could play rough, too; he let his teeth and fingernails drag along the sensitive skin while sucking and gripping as hard as he could, and he both heard and felt Clark’s moans. Then Clark took Steve down to the root again, swallowing around the head, and more than ever Steve desperately wanted to return the favor. He sucked Clark down as far as he could and then, praying this would work, he relaxed his jaw, tipped his head back, and nudged forward a bit at a time until he thought Clark might slide past the gagging point. Steve took a deep breath, and moved forward until Clark blocked his airway, then further, until finally Clark’s pubic hairs tickled his nose.

“Steve!” Clark gasped, before returning to his task with new fervor, licking Steve’s balls, kissing his thighs, and feasting on the main course like he’d never get the chance again. _We might never get the chance again_ , Steve thought, and suddenly his eyes, already streaming, prickled for a different reason. All the same, Steve felt the heat pooling in his groin, his balls tightening, and let the tears flow freely as he surged forward into Clark’s hungry mouth.

Clark’s hips began to stutter, and one touch slammed Steve’s head back. Rather than end up with a concussion, Steve pulled off, dragging in a deep breath, and pumped Clark in his hand, but he did it with a nagging sense of guilt. Clark had just swallowed for him, it felt wrong to not reciprocate, or do something extra, let Clark know he could use Steve any way he wanted – hang on. Steve stopped and rolled onto his back. “Come here.”

“S-Steve?”

“Straddle me, and when you shoot … do it on my face.”

Clark’s expression warred between surprise and lust, but the rest of his body moved quickly, and soon Steve found the same organ that had stretched his throat pointed right at his head. Clark took himself in hand and worked himself so fast his arm blurred, his lip between his teeth and his eyes locked with Steve’s. Steve tilted his head up, still gasping for breath after his orgasm, knowing Clark might aim for his mouth, letting his lips hang open so Clark could. 

“Come on, you want to see me covered in it, don’t you? Come on, do it, get it all over me,” Steve said, gloating at how his words made Clark’s eyes flash red. Soon Clark threw his head back and groaned, spurting warm jets onto Steve’s skin, the floor, and even the walls. Steve felt it hit his hair, splash onto his cheeks, drip down his neck, dribble into his ears, and decorate his teeth. He made a show of licking his lips and swallowing that made Clark whimper through his aftershocks.

Clark collapsed next to him, then rolled towards him, cupping Steve’s head. Before Steve could guess what Clark had in mind he felt Clark’s lips on his forehead, kissing him, his tongue gently lapping Steve clean. Clark traveled his entire face, each kiss a “thank you,” each lick a “let me.” Then Clark kissed him, and Steve could taste both Clark and himself mingled on Clark’s tongue, and knew that was precisely how they should be, _together_. In that moment, Steve couldn’t even fathom a world where what he and Clark were doing didn’t make perfect sense.

“God, Steve,” Clark breathed between kisses. “That was amazing, _you’re_ amazing, I love y-” Clark’s whole body tensed up, and he looked away.

“… It’s okay,” Steve managed, only now realizing something he probably should have clued in to a while ago. “I … I think I feel the same way.”

Pure relief washed across Clark’s face, and Steve marveled at how this man’s very future hung in the balance, yet _this_ had made him nervous. Hell, feeling this way about someone again – about another man, one from another planet, no less – should have made Steve himself nervous. Instead, it just felt like he and Clark had quietly turned a corner with their not quite spoken words, and it merely meant they’d face whatever came next together, and that prospect didn’t scare Steve at all.

After another kiss that Steve felt down to his toes, Clark said, “So … facials? I didn’t know you were into that. Where’d you get that idea?”

“There's a name for what we just did?!”

Clark’s mouth quirked. “There are entire porn movies based on what we just did. And the other things we did are called sixty-nine and deep-throating.”

Steve felt his ears heat up. “I knew _that_ much, I'm not a complete numbskull. Between hanging around Army soldiers and having Howard Stark as a friend, I heard an awful lot about sex, I just … hadn't done any of it.” He could feel the pout on his face, and it irritated him, but he couldn't help it. Though his reasons for waiting remained sensible, and he'd certainly made up for some lost time with Clark, Steve's virginity back in his day remained a bit of a sore spot, especially since it reminded him what he'd missed out on with Peggy.

“I'm sorry.” A pause, then, “You know, if you're open to some of the kinkier stuff, there are other things we could do. Just let me know what you want. I promise,” Clark's eyes softened, “I'll be as gentle as you need me to be.” Then Clark's expression darkened. “And you can be as rough with me as you want.”

It took an effort to push aside the multiple visuals Clark's words inspired, but Steve wanted something else even more. “Maybe, but on one condition. You let me sleep here tonight.”

Clark looked unsure. “Cameras and all?”

Steve shrugged. “If they insist on watching, then we may as well give them a show.”

Clark gave him a devilish grin while stripping off their remaining clothes. “Damn, I like this side of you, but let's save that for later. We have some long overdue shower sex coming to us. In fact, I want several dress rehearsals in this bathroom before we put on a performance out there.”

“Well, practice makes perfect, I guess,” Steve said as he lifted his arms so Clark could remove his shirt.

* * *

The cameras in the bathroom had remained inactive on Hill’s orders since Kent took up residence there, carefully hidden behind hastily installed lead paneling. Once specimen collections confirmed that Kent did use the toilet, she wanted to afford him the privacy of going in peace; she wasn’t heartless, after all. Of course, once Kent had an Avenger locked in there with him, and it certainly looked like he’d be too distracted to use his x-ray vision or focus his super-hearing, Hill retracted the paneling and turned the cameras on, routing the feed directly and exclusively to her monitor to allow the men some privacy – the entire surveillance system monitoring department didn’t need to see this.

Hill tilted her head, then further, and further, until her ear nearly touched her shoulder, her eyebrows climbing higher and higher into her bangs.

Kind of a shame Coulson was in “Tahiti.” He would have paid a mint to see this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't find a way to include this that didn't interrupt the flow of the story, but all the SHIELD tests also proved that Clark is STI-free, and even if he had some Kryptonian virus he couldn't transmit it to a human. Besides, Steve's serum protects him against stuff like that anyway. As a result, Steve and Clark both feel comfortable with the fluid exchange going on here (and in future chapters).


	18. Chapter 18

After populating Clark’s city block and campus with several well-trained, heavily armed and surveillance-equipped new “neighbors” and “students,” Hill finally gave the green light on Clark returning to his apartment and job, thankfully before Lana went into premature labor out of worry. While she still didn’t know the full story, Lana had seen the submarine footage like everyone else, knew that was her superpowered friend out there even if no one else did, and hadn’t heard from Clark since. Clark could hear Lana crying miles away, with him still forbidden from even making a phone call, and Steve had never seen him so steamed. Steve advised Hill on how Clark would likely look upon SHIELD if he missed Pete and Lana having their baby – or if there were complications, and Clark wasn’t there to help them. Clark regained his freedom soon after.

It didn’t hurt that Clark had finally agreed to let SHIELD have a closer look at Kelex. Under cover of darkness, he unearthed the escape pod buried miles beneath the barn of the abandoned Kent farm and flew it to Hill’s HQ. Scientists from an installation called the Sandbox were stumped and frustrated by the technology, particularly the displays that looked like floating metal filings shaping themselves into any detailed moving 3D image. Even Clark’s red baby blanket – impervious to blades, bullets, lasers, flamethrowers, acid, and anything else SHIELD could come up with – remained a mystery. Stark, on the other hand, seemed thrilled by everything he didn’t understand, muttering excitedly with Banner about something called Ultron, but Steve usually tuned them out when they stopped speaking English. Clark didn’t let them keep the ship, but SHIELD now knew where he hid it, and that worked as a compromise of sorts.

The footage of Clark with the submarine still hadn’t gone away, and the public, understandably panicking at that level of power in one person, demanded answers about this mystery man. That reporter Clark mentioned once, Lois Lane, had gone so far as to give him a name, one that hardly calmed the masses’ fears.

“ _Superman?!_ ” Clark gaped at the _Daily Planet_ website.

“It kind of fits,” Steve said. “Didn’t Nietzsche’s Zarathustra present the Übermensch as a goal for humanity to strive towards?”

“Yes … which led to the Nazi Party adopting it as the ideal to justify their racial cleansing.”

“Don’t let someone else’s intentions define something for you,” Steve warned. “If you do stick with the name, then make it mean what _you_ want it to, through your actions. I didn’t choose the name Captain America, Senator Brandt did, and for him it was just an easy catchphrase for more publicity, war bonds, and votes. I’d say the name means a bit more than that now. Personally, I like Superman. Besides, it goes well with that S around your neck.”

Clark smiled. “It’s not an S. On Krypton, it was my family crest and translated to ‘hope.’”

Steve smirked back. “Well, in this neck of the woods, it’s an S. And on that note, I have a surprise for you.”

Clark had once shown Steve a drawing he and his mother came up with after his WWII homework project, when they both playfully imagined Clark becoming a costumed hero like Captain America. Unknown to Clark, Steve had described the drawing to Tony Stark, for whom superhero upgrades had become a bit of an obsession. When not tinkering with his own suits, Stark drew up plans for magnetizing Steve’s gloves to attract the shield, upping the voltage on Barton’s Electro arrows or Romanoff’s Widow’s Bites, and he constantly floated ideas on how to calm or neutralize the Hulk. He welcomed the challenge.

“I had to nix the red Speedos,” Stark said as Clark stared open-mouthed at the skinsuit, blue and red with splashes of yellow, complete with a gigantic version of the ‘S’ pendant design emblazoned across the chest. “I’m sorry, just … no. Besides, you’ve got enough red already. And I know it’s got more of a metallic, mini-chainmail feel than what you and your mom were going for, but I’m thinking clothes that can keep up with a man of steel need to be a bit tougher than the average lycra leotard. So, what do you think?”

Silence, and Steve and Stark shared a look. Surely the red underpants hadn’t meant that much to him?

“You’ll need to wear something,” Stark argued, “preferably something that doesn’t get shredded or burn off when you fly at mach whatever in and out of Earth’s atmosphere. And that blanket your bio-parents sent with you works great as a cape, it’ll help with aerodynamics, keep you from wiping out on sharp corners.” 

More silence, and Steve began to worry he’d overstepped. Had Clark meant to keep this memory of Martha Kent private? Did it offend him to see one of his precious few heirlooms from Jor-El and Lara used as an accessory?

“Come on,” Stark almost whined. “For the rest of us, ‘suit up’ means something, and it should for you, t-OOF!”

Stark’s feet left the floor as Clark grabbed him in a bear hug.

“Yeah, I really shouldn’t have shown you this on a full bladder,” Stark said in a strained voice. “Okay, buddy, you’re welcome, now let me go before I need a chiropractor.”

Of course later Stark complained that none of the others got that happy when he made them a gift. Banner promised, with a straight face, that the Hulk would give him a peck on the cheek once they finished construction on Veronica, and for once Stark had nothing else to say.

* * *

Steve’s apartment somehow seemed brighter with Clark in it. Everything from the fridge filling up with vegetarian dishes, to his scent on the other pillow, to the second toothbrush on the bathroom sink made coming home something Steve looked forward to. Clark still had his place in the South Bronx, but just as Steve had spent every night sleeping on Clark’s floor for weeks, now Clark had become a fixture in Steve’s space. Steve couldn’t find it in him to complain.

Since Steve no longer had to give a damn about SHIELD discovering his preferences, he began spending time on his laptop researching news stories on gay people, and since he didn’t need much sleep he spent nearly as much time on his computer as he spent with Clark. He had a story from the _Daily Planet_ glowing on his screen as Clark walked into the bedroom, munching on an apple.

“Please tell me you’re not reading about ‘the submarine Superman’ again,” Clark moaned. At the moment, Clark wore nothing except his ‘S’ necklace and his glasses, just like in class; it was by far Steve’s favorite look on him.

“No, it’s something else. Actually I wanted to … um, can I ask you something?”

Clark smiled downwards at him, since Steve sat cross-legged on the bed. “You don’t have to ask if you can ask me, Steve. Just ask me.”

“I was watching old news coverage of this summer’s Pride parade, and a lot of the guys they interviewed had clothes and speech patterns and physical gestures that were very, um, well, flamboyant? In my day, men were far more discreet; they had to be. I don’t know what to make of the ones I see today, but I don’t think I can keep up with them. One of the reasons I thought I couldn’t, you know, come out, is because that’s not me, not even a little bit. And just when I think I’m a lost cause I meet you, and you’re, well, you’re not …”

“A screaming queen?”

Steve winced. “I was trying to not say it like that.”

“There’s nothing wrong with them, you know.”

“I know, I do, I just,” Steve rushed to say, then blew out a frustrated breath.

“Whatever it is, just say it, Steve. It’s okay.”

“Why do they feel the need to do that? And how come you don’t?”

Clark sat down across from him. “Well, some guys are like that naturally, just over the top and in your face. From what you’ve told me of Tony Stark and Thor, it sounds like they fit that personality type.”

“Yes, they certainly do,” Steve nodded. “But these guys, they don’t just have the same mannerisms, they have the same accent, same dialect, and there’s no way they all came from the same region. It’s like they’ve consciously developed their own cadence that transcends whatever part of the country they grew up in, and they use it to recognize each other.”

“That’s exactly what it is, lots of openly gay guys do affect a way of speaking and carrying themselves, but they do it for more reasons than finding each other.” Clark started ticking off his fingers. “Most do it to embrace their identity, to announce to the world they’re not ashamed or scared. Some do it to make up for lost time after being in the closet for years. Some do it to pay homage to those who came before, to drive home how open they can be now as proof of how far we’ve come. And some do it to challenge or defy societal norms and the government, because things have gotten much better since your time, but they’re far from perfect, and being very loudly out is one way of confronting the problem.”

Steve took a minute to digest Clark’s words. “Those all sound like good reasons. So how come you don’t do it?”

“Because the whole point of coming out is, I think, to be true to yourself. Turns out when it’s all said and done,” Clark spread his hands, “this is who I am. My accent only changes when I live abroad, I still like loose jeans and flannel shirts, I still love watching football, I still have two left feet on the dance floor –”

“Finally, something we have in common,” Steve smirked.

Clark smirked back. “I’m the exact same guy, plus a little more surety and confidence, and a rainbow bead bracelet on my wrist. I may not be as brazen as some of the guys at Pride parades, but I’m out, and I think that’s enough. When or if you come out, that will be enough, you won’t need to change how you speak or carry yourself in order to qualify. And going to a parade dressed as you are right now would work fine.”

Steve looked down. “I’m not wearing anything,” he smirked again.

Clark took off his glasses and moved towards Steve, his strange, beautiful blue eyes smiling. “Like I said, it works just fine.”

Steve stilled Clark with a hand on his shoulder. “Keep them on.”

Clark paused, almost nose to nose with Steve. “Huh?”

“The glasses, put them back on.”

“… Is this another kink you’re sharing with me?”

Yes, Steve thought. “Could be,” he said.

Clark slid the eyewear back onto his face. “Better?” They sat slightly askew, the lenses smudged with fingerprints. Steve found the effect cute.

Clark tasted like the apple he’d eaten, the core discarded and forgotten somewhere. Not breaking the kiss, Steve closed the laptop and set it aside, and soon forgot about it as well. “Got any other ideas you’d like to explore tonight?” Clark whispered, leaning his head back as Steve’s mouth went to his neck.

“Actually,” Steve began, but he couldn’t continue. He trusted Clark implicitly, but something about saying it out loud … Steve ducked his head and huffed out a bashful laugh.

“Hey.” Clark’s hand came up to cup his face. “Whatever it is, I want to try it, too.”

“You don’t even know what it is yet.”

“If the blush on your face is anything to go by, then it’s something you want very much,” Clark said softly, “so I want it, too.”

Clark looked so sincere that Steve felt a wave of confidence wash over him. After all, he’d had a few conversations with Clark about kink practices lately, and what he wanted seemed pretty – what’s the word, “vanilla?” – anyhow. “Okay. In my closet, I have a few old Army dress uniforms hanging up …”

Clark looked intrigued. “Yeah?” Steve figured Clark assumed he wanted them to dress up and “roleplay” (another new word Clark taught him). He pictured Clark in a military uniform, his hair slicked back, his broad back filling out the dress shirt, crisply ironed slacks stretched across his buttocks, and Steve nearly changed his plans for the evening. Filing that idea away for a later date, he continued, “And um, they all have … neckties?”

A slow smile spread across Clark’s face, and he bounded off the bed towards the closet. In seconds, he offered two beige and two brown ties to Steve. Clark already had one hand crossed over the other, clearly expecting Steve to truss up his wrists. 

But Steve curled Clark’s fingers over the ties and pushed them back towards Clark’s chest. Then he opened his mouth, but he still couldn’t get the words out. He didn't need to, though; the way Clark’s eyes bugged out said he'd guessed Steve's intentions.

“Do –” Clark swallowed hard. “Do you want both your hands and feet –?”

“No, just my hands,” Steve managed, ignoring how his heart had ratcheted up to triphammer speed. “And … and one for my eyes.” Just saying that much made him feel horribly exposed, more than his nakedness ever could. “And … and when we’re done talking about it, the, the other tie …” It felt like all the blood in his body had gone to his face, and despite everything they’d been through part of him felt scared Clark would judge him.

“Alright,” Clark said instead. Steve couldn’t explain even to himself why this made him so nervous, or why the only thing that calmed him was looking into Clark’s face. Clark gave him a reassuring kiss, then reached behind him to reposition the pillows. “Sit back.” The pillows supported his lower back and provided a buffer between his skin and the cold bars of the headboard. Just the fact that Clark thought of that, when he hardly felt pain, didn’t even feel hot or cold … Steve afforded himself a small smile; just as he’d promised himself decades ago, he’d picked the right partner.

Clark studied the headboard, wrought iron, in a style called “vintage” nowadays, but Steve picked it because it reminded him of his childhood. Clark knotted the end of one necktie to a bar and then, after a nod from Steve, began winding the other end around Steve’s wrist. “How does that feel?” Clark asked.

Steve’s wrist rested on the mattress, his arm relaxed, his circulation good. “Fine,” he said, and watched as Clark repeated the action on his other wrist. Instead of lying spread-eagled with a strain on his shoulders, Steve could just as easily have been sitting up in bed watching television, his arms out at either side instead of in his lap.

Speaking of his lap, Clark had settled himself there, and Steve didn’t even try to stop his body’s reaction to Clark’s warm weight. Clark smirked as he felt it. “Well, at least I know I’m on the right track so far. Now, before we go any further, tell me exactly what you want me to do. I know it can be embarrassing to say it,” he sympathized, as Steve felt his cheeks heat up again, “but if I’m going to use this fourth tie the way I think you want me to, then you’d better make yourself clear now before you’re reduced to nodding and shaking your head.”

Stuttering and stammering, Steve finally got the words out, in mortifying detail, though he had to admit he rather enjoyed the way Clark’s eyebrows rose with the corners of his mouth.

“I can do that,” Clark said, and held up the necktie. “You ready?” Steve nodded, closed his eyes, and felt the fabric encircle his head. Suddenly his heartbeat, already thumping, sounded that much louder to him, and Clark’s scent seemed stronger, and Steve felt even more aware of the ties on his wrists; in fact everything was amplified without his sight. Clark leaned in to kiss him, and though Steve usually closed his eyes when they kissed, the binds intensified it somehow. Steve felt the fourth tie graze his cheek. “Ready?” Clark asked again.

“Yeah,” Steve said, taking advantage of his last chance to talk, then held still while Clark pulled the necktie between his lips and knotted it at the nape of his neck.

Helpless. Never mind that his feet were still free, or that he could easily break the ties, break the bed, if he had to. He’d never submitted to someone like this before, told them he wouldn’t fight back, or even talk back. His most effective weapons – his fists, his eyes, and his words – locked away, while the rest of him lay at Clark’s mercy. 

Clark’s whisper in his ear, though he felt the heat of Clark’s face near his, still made him start. “Thank you for trusting me with this.” Steve leaned in and nuzzled him in response. 

Clark’s mouth trailed kisses down the tendon in Steve’s neck, a warm tongue along his collarbone, gentle nibbles across his chest. His hands stroked Steve’s thighs and flanks, up his shoulders and down his arms, and cradled the bound wrists as if thanking Steve again through touch. Steve let his head rest against the wall, drinking in the sensations, surrounded by darkness and restricted in movement, reminding himself again and again, _this is Clark, it’s okay, I’m with Clark, it’s alright._

Now he finally understood why this whole idea, especially voicing it, had wracked his nerves. In Brooklyn, the bullies had control, though Steve fought back with everything he had. Then the Army controlled his destiny, as they denied it to him five times, until fate put him in the path of Dr. Erskine. The night he rescued Bucky and the 107th, he finally took the reins he’d desired so long, and while he did his best to lead the Howling Commandos and then the Avengers wisely, a selfish part of him had to admit he also just loved being in charge, having his orders heard, followed, unquestioned. Now, with a few words and four simple neckties, he’d relinquished his control over his body, his pleasure, his choice in whether he felt pain or not, even his sensory input. A big part of him hated feeling like this, like he’d _surrendered_ , without even putting up a fight. But another, deeper part knew he needed this, this push outside of his comfort zone, this chance to relax and let someone else drive. So he kept breathing, and ignoring the part of him that roared to tear through the ties on pure principle, and remembering he was in the hands of a man he’d trust with his life.

The first puff of frigid air went along Steve’s flank in a thin strip, and Steve arched up and away, gasping. Clark immediately followed with his hand, rubbing until Steve warmed and relaxed again. “Okay?” Clark asked. Steve moaned and nodded, and Clark kissed along the goosepimpled skin to soothe it further. This, Steve told himself, is why he wanted this with Clark, why the idea would likely have never have occurred to him if not for Clark. Not because of his powers – they could just as easily have done this with ice cubes – but because Clark intended to make sure all of it, the loss of control, the pain and pleasure alike, all culminated in the most intense orgasm he could give his partner.

Clark massaged and kissed along Steve’s legs, until the muscles relaxed under his fingers, and then a small hot sting hit Steve’s inner thigh. Steve hissed and jumped, and Clark’s tongue, so cool and wet in comparison, soon covered the spot. Clark checked in again, and Steve nodded again. It beat the candle wax Clark said people usually used by a million miles, in Steve’s opinion, as they wouldn’t have to rip it off, along with some leg hair, later on.

And so it went, Clark adding nail scratches, tickling, vibrating fingers, and sharp little bites to his freeze breath and heat vision, alternating with soft lips, a wet tongue, and firm hands, until Steve had squirmed his way down the bed, his arms straining under the bindings after all, the neckties pulled taut. He whined and groaned behind his gag, head thrashing back and forth, trying to both flinch from and arch towards Clark’s ministrations. His skin felt sensitized all over, the air in the room cool on him where Clark had used his eyes and warm where he’d used his breath. In some areas Steve felt sore or tender; others itched or tingled. However, it all paled in comparison to the painfully full and heavy rod between his legs, which Clark had neglected the entire night, something Steve now seriously regretted instructing Clark to do. Starved for attention where he needed it most, overwhelmed by overstimulation everywhere else, and fuming that he couldn’t do anything about it, the gag muzzled words to make a sailor blush as Steve thrust his hips blindly towards Clark’s body heat, tried to grind against any skin he could contact, twisted wherever he believed Clark’s mouth was. And it was all out of his control, he couldn’t grab Clark, couldn’t tell him, couldn’t even _see_ him, and his body hurt, and he needed to come, and why the hell did he want this, it was all too much ... 

They’d agreed that Steve snapping his fingers would serve as the safeword, and just as Steve brought middle finger to thumb, because it was either that or lose his mind, the mattress bounced to indicate Clark had left the bed. Being completely devoid of touch proved even worse than what came before, and a wave of panic hit. Steve keened behind his gag, turning his body towards Clark’s footsteps, flat out begging now. A warm hand stroked Steve’s shoulder, and he picked up the sound of a cap flipping open, its meaning – or at least what he prayed it meant – making him nearly cry in relief. The mattress dip and body heat told Steve Clark had moved to the end of the bed, and Steve, desperate for contact, used his feet to caress him. Steve could feel that Clark was kneeling on the bed, his legs spread wide; he could smell the antiseptic (yet arousing, in a Pavlovian sort of way) scent of lubricant; he could hear the wet sounds and deep sighs that came with Clark prepping himself.

Clark’s legs straddled Steve’s hips, and Steve would have bucked wildly up if Clark hadn’t been as ardent as he: breathing hard, shaking, and impaling himself in one forceful stroke. Steve’s muffled cry echoed Clark’s.

“You said,” Clark panted, pistoning his hips hard and fast, “to not, _nngh_ , let you come until – _oh!_ – I chose what I wanted to, _mmph_ , to do with you, and, _oh, oh God_ I want this!”

He’d get no argument from Steve. Maybe it was the inability to see, touch, or speak, or the rawness over every inch of his skin, or just the fact that he couldn’t direct any of this, that he actually _had_ directed all of it, but Clark had never felt so unbearably hot, so deliciously tight. He knew for sure Clark had never worked him like this, single-mindedly, almost frantically, like he aimed to collapse the bed frame, or slam the headboard right though the wall. Steve could swear he heard the neckties at his wrists ripping, the metal bed frame creaking, but he couldn’t care less.

At the same time Steve's orgasm slammed through him, he also felt Clark’s splash along his chest and face, felt Clark clenching around him like he meant to take that particular body part with him. Steve could only ride through the earth-moving aftershocks, and pray it didn't come to that.

Moments or hours later, he sensed Clark leaning over him, heard his heavy breathing, then felt the fabric around his wrists loosening, unraveling. Steve didn’t even have the energy to lift his head for Clark, but didn’t need to; one large hand cradled Steve’s head as the other undid the neckties blinding and silencing him. The first thing Steve saw was Clark, his glasses _still_ on, gazing down at him. Then Clark left his view, and returned with a washcloth and blanket to clean and cover them both.

“Come here,” Clark murmured, and enveloped Steve in a hug, gently rocking him. It should have been silly, Clark coddling him like a child with a skinned knee, but truth be told Steve did feel a bit … vulnerable, after all that. “You did great,” Clark said in that same hushed, affectionate tone. “You really let go, I know it was difficult for you to do that. I’m proud of you, baby.”

Steve closed his eyes, pressed in closer, and let the praise and cuddling quiet his mind. It felt good, like the sex had somehow broken him into pieces, but this was putting him back together, into someone a little bit stronger.

“I’m sorry I got a little carried away there,” Clark breathed, “I meant to go longer, but you just, you’ve never looked so … debauched … or so _hard_ , it drove me crazy to not touch it. I could hardly wait long enough to get the lube, I wanted you so bad.”

“It’s okay,” Steve managed, his breathing still ragged. “I was climbing the walls, too. I wanted to scream at you to get a move on. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure I did scream that.” A few more seconds of catching his breath, and maybe allowing himself to be spoiled with a little more snuggling, then Steve said, “So, all in all, I think that experiment went well.”

Clark rumbled out a laugh. “Definitely a success. That is,” he raised his head to look at Steve, “if I did everything the way you wanted. Are you okay? I didn’t hurt you?”

“… No more than I wanted you to.” Steve still felt his ears go a bit pink at the admission, but the rest of his body thrummed with satisfaction, with a strange mixture of residual pain and pleasure, and all the emotions stripped bare. Making love with Clark had always been good, but it had never felt so cathartic before.

Steve blinked at his brain’s choice of words. _Making love?_

“Okay.” Clark’s hands roamed Steve’s chest and arms, the marks from their play throbbing a bit under his light touch. “You didn’t bleed or have any broken skin, I made sure of that. No frostbite, either, and nothing worse than first-degree pinprick burns. I know painkillers don’t affect you, and it might be weird to have me blow on those spots now, after everything. Do you want some ice packs, or aloe vera?”

As far as Steve was concerned, just the fact that Clark did that, examined him and asked to tend to him, settled the matter – yes, that was making love. “You can stay right here, mister,” Steve mumbled, moving in closer, even nestling into Clark’s chest, not the least bit ashamed about wanting to fall asleep wrapped in his boyfriend’s – lover’s – arms.


	19. Chapter 19

_Lana went into labor at 3:41 this morning,_ the text from Clark read. Okay, Steve thought, still toweling off from his run, so he wouldn’t see him for a while that day. Just as well, anyway, since the Avengers had a press conference at 0900 hours.

Over six months had passed since the Battle, and the conference had all the usual elements: those reporters looking for someone besides Loki to blame for the attack, some new conspiracy angle; those who needed reassurances that no indication of a second invasion had made itself known; those who wanted to know exactly how the Avengers planned to ward off any other attacks, to the point of demanding classified information; those determined to voice their doubts about Banner’s ability to control the Hulk; those who needed telling again that no, Thor hadn’t contacted them, and no, they weren’t worried about how they’d defend the planet without him. Again, Steve couldn’t blame them. The mostly New York-based reporters had been as traumatized as anyone else by the invasion. Still, sometimes he wished they’d broach a different topic.

Then one reporter, a woman who apparently shared his sentiment, raised her hand with a question for Steve.

“Captain, I believe President Ellis has invited you to attend this year’s Veterans’ Day Ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery as a distinguished visitor?” 

“That’s right,” Steve said, appreciating the reminder that he needed to finish redrafting his speech, though Clark said it sounded great.

“I’ve heard that invitation has a ‘plus one’ option, yet no one has been confirmed to attend with you yet. Not having trouble finding a date, are you?” She smiled, inviting Steve to share the joke. Her attempt to lighten the mood worked; several reporters chuckled at the idea of a man with Steve’s looks, fame, and reputation having difficulty finding a willing woman.

A date, that’s right, he’d been invited to bring a date. Not really appropriate for such a solemn ceremony, Steve thought, but other people would attend with their spouses, so it made sense. The reporter had also unwittingly both given him a golden opportunity and thrown down a gauntlet – either Steve came clean in a moment where it made perfect sense to do so, or he could make the conscious choice to remain in the closet, treating Clark like some dirty little secret … and when he thought about it like that, there was really only one choice.

“No, I’m not having trouble finding a date,” he said, and though he needed a deep breath before continuing, he noted his heart didn’t pound nearly as hard as he’d thought it would, “I just haven’t gotten around to asking Clark yet.”

In the reporters’ confused pause, Steve caught the slight twitch in Romanoff’s lips that said she held back a smile. On his other side, Barton didn’t even bother reining in his grin.

“ _Clark?_ ” the reporter asked, her smile widening with her eyes. Steve noticed she wore a pin on her lapel in the shape of a double-headed axe, a labrys. “Captain, a-are, are you saying you have a boyfriend?”

Steve furrowed his brow as if giving the question thought. “Well, personally, I feel ninety-four is a little old to have a boyfriend, but we’ve only been dating for seven weeks, so it’s kind of early for any marriage talk.” He gave a one-shoulder shrug. “I guess I’m just old-fashioned that way.”

A beat of stunned silence, and then the room exploded with questions, the reporters leaping out of their seats, cameras flashing at a rapid-fire pace. Steve kept his face calm and collected, until he saw Stark’s huge grin and met it with one of his own – the first time any reporter or photographer had seen Captain America smile since he returned from the dead.

A SHIELD agent called an end to the conference, and the Avengers left amidst a cacophony of shouted questions. Then Steve’s phone dinged.

_It’s a girl!!! 7 lbs, 2 oz! Lana’s fine and Pete’s on top of the world. I’m an uncle!!!_

Then seconds later, another message.

_I’m so proud of you, Steve._

He texted back: _I’m kind of proud of me, too. Give Lana and Pete my best. Congratulations, Uncle Clark._

* * *

The press had the field day they’d been hoping for. Some people lambasted Steve for corrupting and perverting everything he once stood for (when did he _stop_ standing for it, that’s what he wanted to know). Others slammed him for waiting so long to say something, as if Steve had robbed them of their entitlement to scrutinize and criticize each step of his journey. Others still lamented how the 21st century's decadence had clearly seduced and unbalanced him, while at the same time gleefully hypothesizing how he would debase himself next. One critic went so far as to accuse Steve of stealing the war veterans’ thunder by making the upcoming ceremony all about his coming out, the only comment that did burn. But all in all, Steve couldn’t care less. The press had become more powerful since his day, true, but since most of them squandered that power on meaningless stories like who Captain America slept with, they’d become a parody of what they once stood for, and Steve just couldn’t find it in himself to worry over them. 

Clark, on the other hand, having seen firsthand how his peers could spin a dignified silence into “a shitstorm of rumors and innuendo,” as he put it, strongly suggested Steve and he give an interview together. Steve took Clark’s rare use of profanity as a clue of how serious he was. Soon _Trish Talk,_ already a popular radio talk show, had its highest ratings yet as Trish Walker got both Captain America and his new boyfriend into her studio.

“As great as television and computers are, I still remember how it felt to huddle close to a radio and draw a picture in my mind with the broadcaster’s words, especially when money was too tight to go to a Dodgers game,” Steve told her on the air. “So communicating like this makes me feel right at home.”

“Besides, I told him I like your show,” Clark added. 

“I realize I’m taking a big risk with my public image,” Steve said, “and considering the time period I’m from, you must know I’m not taking it lightly. But some things are more important than whether people still see me as squeaky clean, things like honesty, and integrity. In my day, telling anyone who cared to know was simply not an option, even when I wanted to. I can say these things aloud now because of the brave men and women who spent the last seventy years fighting for their civil liberties, and I can appreciate better than most how much of a difference their efforts made. I won’t insult them by remaining quiet.”

“I feel honored that he chose me,” Clark told her later, “and I don’t just mean as someone to date. I’ve always been blessed by people who took a chance on me. Without going too deep into it, my biological parents were in a very bad way, and even though I know they wanted to keep me, they knew my chances would be better elsewhere, so they let me go and held onto hope that I would be okay without them. My adoptive parents took a huge gamble to raise a baby in their golden years, and to choose me out of all the children they could have adopted instead. So I’ve always tried to live my life in a way that proves those gambles and sacrifices weren’t in vain. Then I met Steve, who didn’t have to come out to anybody, who could have pushed his needs to the backburner like he always had and just focused on dealing with all of the other insane things life has thrown at him this year. Instead he took a chance, a leap of faith that it was finally time to live honestly and pursue what he wants, and he took that leap with me. So I’ll do my best to be the most supportive friend I can, to validate his faith in me, and I would continue to do that even if we broke up tomorrow – though I really hope we don’t,” he said, his smile coming through in his voice.

After _Trish Talk,_ Clark took his turn on the media roasting spit. The circumstances of how Clark and Steve met provided endless material for both daytime talk show psychiatrists and late night talk show comedians. Some people looked at Clark’s small town farm boy upbringing and hand-me-down wardrobe and labeled him a uneducated hick; others questioned his loyalty to America because he’d spent his adult life overseas writing about other nations’ issues. Clark’s evasiveness concerning his biological parents led some to believe they must have abused drugs and the Kents adopted a strung-out baby, a theory Clark grit his teeth and allowed because he could hardly tell them the truth. Conservative and religious commentators all but called Clark a sexual predator, accused him of taking advantage of Steve’s naïveté and poisoning the purest symbol of American decency with this disgusting perversion. Clark, ever one to look on the bright side, pointed out that at least people were digging up and reading his old news articles now, bringing attention to the world issues he’d written about – though he was still shocked when the _Daily Planet_ decided his body of work merited a job offer in the foreign coverage section at their New York bureau.

The world finally got its first good look at the couple together as they stepped out of the limousine at Arlington on Veterans’ Day, and while the more shallow reporters shouted questions at them and dogged their every move, most of the press remembered the real reason they were there and focused on the ceremony. Steve kept his speech short, mainly to save time for the rather long-winded president. While he remembered to keep his eyes moving over the audience, he usually came back to Clark’s encouraging smile in the front row, and once he’d finished speaking, it was Clark’s thumbs up more than the audience’s applause that reassured him he’d done well. 

From his seat on stage, Steve looked out at the veterans in the audience, most with ribbons for service in Afghanistan, Vietnam, and Korea on their chests, but few, so very few left, who served in the same war as him. He made a point of talking to every last one of the World War II vets after the ceremony. All of them had stories, which Steve felt honored to hear. Many of them called him an inspiration, a compliment he returned to each of them. A few even congratulated him on his relationship with Clark, and shared their own coming out stories; those guys got hugs.

Afterwards, he led Clark through the rows of headstones to one in particular. “Heya, Buck. Remember that model from the drawing class I told you about? This is him, his name is Clark, and long story short, I’ve got a boyfriend now. Clark, this is my best friend Bucky.”

“Hello, Sergeant Barnes,” Clark said, as warmly as if the man himself stood before them. “It’s an honor and a pleasure to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you.” Then Clark smiled, “No, sir, Steve left the embarrassing stories out. Usually.” 

While most people carried on conversations with the departed in situations like this, and Steve would wager Clark did the same in the cemetery where the Kents lay, he nevertheless felt grateful that Clark did this at the grave of someone he’d never met.

“I know a lot of people have probably come here and thanked you for your military service,” Clark said, “but, to be honest, I’m mostly grateful for the things you did before you put on the uniform. Thank you, for seeing how amazing Steve is when no one else could. Thank you for never letting him fight alone. Thank you for being the brother he needed. Thank you for loving him.” A pause, then, “Yes, sir. I promise I’ll do my best to make him happy.”

“You already do,” Steve said, and only his military bearing and the restriction on public displays of affection while in uniform kept Steve from kissing him. Still, shortly after that the Internet was flooded with pictures from multiple angles of Captain America decked out in his 1940s Class A’s, and his bespectacled boyfriend sporting the best suit that Goodwill could offer, standing shoulder to shoulder against an endless backdrop of green and white, close enough for their knuckles to graze in the barest touch, and gazing into each other’s eyes.


	20. Chapter 20

It only took one day on campus to illustrate how much had changed. After ten class sessions it had finally reached the point where students who saw Steve every week didn’t gape at him anymore, but now they all had a new reason to follow him with their eyes and whisper behind their hands. Girls once full of bashful giggles now gave him knowing looks as if they were privy to his most intimate secrets, and guys who had stared at him in awe now gave him disappointed or even hostile once-overs like Steve had fallen hard from some impossibly high pedestal. All their borderline rude behavior, however, paled next to the classmate who attempted to conceal her cellphone behind her easel and snap a picture of Clark as he posed.

“ _Drop it!_ ” Steve commanded; nearly every piece of charcoal tumbled out of startled hands, and the cell phone hit the floor with a crack. Luckily the students’ eyes were drawn by the sound, away from Clark moving faster than any human could to get his robe back on. As the substitute teacher ranted about the school’s classroom disruption policy and referring the girl to the academic integrity board, the student whined about all the money she could have made if she’d gotten that shot. Even with that, Steve had to convince Clark to not return for the last three classes, finally having Lana call to reassure Clark that he wasn’t letting her down.

Even a neighbor breaking into Clark’s apartment looking for something to sell to the tabloids didn’t dampen his resolve to stay in the South Bronx until he’d earned his first _Daily Planet_ paycheck. However, after an extremely brief chase and fight that led to Clark carrying the unconscious thief back to their own apartment, Clark returned with his property, a large fireproof box, and asked for Steve’s help in relocating it. Inside was a photo album, Jonathan and Martha Kent looking up from every page, pictures ranging from their own high school days all the way to Clark’s, his elderly parents beaming up at him as he held his diploma high.

“Everything else I own is replaceable, except the stuff from Krypton,” Clark said, “I could even handle losing my beads or glasses, but not this.” Soon after that the fireproof box found a new home in one of Stark’s vaults, one that Stark claimed “only someone smart enough to outhack JARVIS” could crack.

“Thank goodness I hadn’t taken my gift home yet,” Clark said, as he and Steve watched Stark in his lab putting finishing touches on the ‘S’ skinsuit. “If the neighbors had found the suit, my cover would be blown before I even created it.”

“Cover?”

“My secret identity.”

Steve blinked. “Your what?”

“Well, of course I’m not going to _tell_ people I’m Superman.”

Steve blinked again. There had to be a step here that he’d missed. “Are you saying you want Stark to make you a mask to go with the suit?”

“No, absolutely not. When people see the full scope of what I can do, they’ll be terrified – heck, after the submarine, a lot of them are scared already. I want them to relax, to relate to me, to know just from looking at me that they don’t need to fear me. I can’t accomplish that behind a mask, it’ll just make them wonder what else I’m hiding. They’ll need to see my face.”

“And you think people will be okay with you not offering your real name?” Steve said, frowning. “The world knows Iron Man’s real name, Black Widow’s, Hawkeye’s, the Hulk’s, mine, but in your case you think they’ll just settle for ‘Superman’ and not ask any more questions?”

“I’ll tell them it’s Kal-El. That is my birth name, after all.”

“And who is Clark Kent, then?”

“A farmer’s son from Kansas, a reporter for the _Daily Planet,_ your boyfriend, and that’s all.”

Steve stared at Clark for a minute. The idea was ludicrous, that the world would just accept that Superman had hidden among them since he was a baby, maybe even grow to trust him, without full disclosure concerning his life on Earth. Steve didn’t think even Thor, with all he’d done for the planet, could pull that off.

“If I wear the suit every time I use my powers in public from now on,” Clark began, “people will associate those powers, associate Superman, with that suit. Their only mental image will be of a superpowered alien in a red cape flying above them, not a regular guy in blue jeans on the ground among them. I could walk right past people and they’d never know.”

Steve knew his jaw hung open, but he couldn’t help it. “You really think people, all people everywhere, are that dumb?”

“Did any of my neighbors figure out who you are?” Clark countered. “You were in and out of my apartment for months with nothing covering your face, and no one picked up on it. Even though that face has been on magazine covers, on TV, everywhere lately. Because as far as the world is concerned, Captain America wears blue Spandex and fights the Chitauri in Manhattan or Nazis in Germany; he doesn’t hang out in a leather jacket and slacks in the South Bronx. Until you told people you’re dating me, my neighbors wouldn’t have believed that Captain America was nearby unless you showed up with your shield strapped to your back, and even then some of them wouldn’t have bought it. It’s not a lack of intelligence, it’s just … a matter of perception.”

Could it really be that simple? Steve doubted it, yet another part of him wondered how far he could get with an incognito disguise: modern clothes, a baseball cap, maybe glasses or sunglasses of his own? How many might fail to recognize him just because he wasn’t dressed like the American flag?

Still, “Clark, that cowl covers my hair and half my face; you’re talking about pulling off the same thing with a pair of glasses. Besides, once Superman’s face becomes well known, anyone who knows Clark Kent should be able to see the resemblance.” Boy, it felt weird talking about Clark in the third person when the man stood right in front of him, and talking about Superman like he was a completely different person. Would this become the norm? “And a lot of people are taking a harder look at your face now that they know you’re my boyfriend.” Steve continued, his heart skipping a little at the term. “This might have worked if you were the type of fella nobody notices, some zero who fades into the background everywhere he goes, but between what could be a very successful career at the _Daily Planet_ and your link to me … people _see_ you, Clark, and they’ll be watching.”

“And you know what they’ll probably say, rather than accept the idea that an alien is standing right in front of them? They’ll say, ‘You know, you look just like Superman.’ Like it’s just some wild coincidence.”

“Clark –”

“Steve, if I don’t have this, then where will I find my privacy?” Clark asked. “I won’t just be some celebrity, I’m an extraterrestrial living among you. I’ll always be hunted, and not just by the press. There has to be a place in the world I can go where no one’s looking for Superman, because they wouldn’t think to look for him there. And it’s not just my privacy – what kind of lives will Pete and Lana have to look forward to, not to mention the rest of Smallville, if they’re linked to the alien who hid in plain sight? The world will never leave them alone, someone might even hurt them just to get at me. And what about you? You think people are in your business now, that your reputation might take a few knocks? Let the world find out about your alien lover and see how much worse it gets.”

Steve had thought of that, and he wasn’t any more afraid of the fallout now than before, but he had to admit Clark had a point about his friends and hometown.

“I need to be able to interact with humans as one of you, as plain old Clark Kent,” he said, “it’s one of the ways I hold onto my humanity, my connection to all of you. If I can’t go anywhere in the world without people only seeing the superpowered alien, if I’m basically Superman twenty-four hours a day … I don’t need to feel even more alone, Steve. I need this, I have to try this, and sustain it for as long as I can.”

Steve opened his mouth to make the argument that having an open identity hadn’t hurt any of the Avengers, but stopped himself. He knew Clark’s situation was different – Clark’s extraterrestrial status singled him out for scrutiny in a way none of the others felt, and he didn’t have Thor’s option of only visiting Earth and then returning home. Steve could also tell, recognizing the same resolve Clark had in his face the night he told Steve the truth, that Clark’s mind was made up.

So, Steve did something he hardly ever did in his life, something that would likely make everyone who’d ever known him roll in their graves – he and Clark reached a compromise. Clark would try the dual identity with the full knowledge that eventually it could ( _would,_ Steve thought) blow up in his face, and they would deal with it when or if it did. Steve really didn’t like giving the public an opportunity to accuse him of lying to them, and Clark, trying to convince people to trust Superman, would catch it even worse. But for Clark, Steve could roll the dice one more time.

Later that night, Steve relaxed on his couch and admired Clark as he tried on the new suit. On his strong, straight-backed frame, the simple design looked regal, yet somehow classic as well, and Steve could see that ‘S’ symbol someday becoming seared into the public consciousness in a way that might surpass even his own shield.

“Well, it’s … certainly … _tight,_ ” Clark commented.

“So’s mine,” Steve countered, “and Romanoff’s, and Barton’s, and Banner’s – well, Banner hardly has a choice in the matter.”

“Are skintight suits a superhero requirement?”

“More like an unspoken expectation. Besides, it’ll help the whole dual identity thing. With an outfit like that, no one’s going to look too hard at your face.”

Clark turned to smirk at Steve, his red cape swishing around his ankles. “Yeah, Lana’s students did tend to ignore my face when I stood in front of them naked, which this suit is about one step away from. Only one drew my portrait all semester.”

“Yeah, me.”

“Just one of the reasons you have an A average,” Clark said, leaning in for a kiss.

“Yeah, I have the top grade, a boyfriend, and a new superhero,” Steve tallied. “Not bad for one art class. I wonder what I’ll manage next semester.”

Clark laughed. “Come here,” he said, pulling Steve up and into his arms. “Let’s just focus on what you can do tonight.”

The suit felt scaly under Steve’s fingers, and hard as armor, though it moved and flexed with Clark’s muscles. Stark had outdone himself, Steve had to admit. As sexy as Clark looked in the suit, however, Steve preferred how Clark would feel out of it.

They stumbled into the bedroom, hands roaming and grasping. “Do that thing,” Steve breathed between kisses, “that speed thing.”

Clark smiled into his mouth. “You’re really keen on that move, aren’t you?”

“Saves time.”

A flurry of movement, a hundred hands all over Steve’s body at once, and before he could catch his breath Steve lay on his back wearing nothing but a smile, with an equally bare Clark hovering over him and their clothes flung everywhere.

“I can promise you,” Steve said, “that will be the only time I want things to move that fast. Everything else I want to savor.”

Clark’s mouth and hands moved down Steve’s body, leaving a trail of heat and moisture. Weeks ago, the first time Steve felt Clark’s tongue circling his nipple he’d squirmed away, certain such acts were reserved for women, and Clark had to talk Steve into giving it a try. Now Steve’s hand cradled the back of Clark’s head and he arched his back to reach Clark’s mouth. Clark nipped, blew, nibbled, licked, and by the time he finally closed his lips around the bud Steve moaned out loud. Clark stopped to admire the effect.

“It’s like it’s looking at me.”

“Wh-?” Steve looked down, then brought up a hand to cover his reddening face. His johnson lay on his stomach, pointed right at them. “Well, maybe if you paid it some attention –”

“In a minute,” Clark said, switching to the other nipple and making Steve gasp and arch again.

The teasing – Clark called it foreplay, but dammit, it took Steve from only being keyed up in one central spot to feeling like his whole body was on fire – continued with his pectorals, ribs, stomach muscles, bellybutton, until Steve’s fingers itched to grab Clark by the hair and shove him toward his crotch. When Clark’s tongue finally, finally traced a wet stripe up Steve’s shaft from root to tip Steve nearly ripped the sheets fisted in his hands.

“I’m glad you like what I’m doing,” Clark lifted his head to say, “but these look like really expensive sheets; it’d be a shame if you tore them.”

“They’re my sheets, I’ll do what I want. Now stop talking and start sucking, already!” Clark’s eyes darkened as they always did when Steve talked dirty, and he swallowed Steve down without another word.

At times like this Clark cheated a bit, using his strength to create harder suction or his speed to flick his tongue, and Steve had absolutely no problem with Clark not playing fair. However, all the tricks in the world wouldn’t have kept Steve from noticing the gentle, oiled finger circling his hole. Steve’s eyes snapped open. “Clark?”

Clark looked up. “Not up for it this time?” His other hand set aside a small bottle of lube, and Steve wondered again at Clark’s speed; he hadn’t even noticed Clark leave to grab it.

“No, it’s fine, I …” Steve bit his lip. “Maybe this time we could do … more?”

Clark sat up. “Really? You sure?”

“I’m sure I want to try.”

Clark’s grin turned wolfish. “Lie back.”

“You’re not going to just ram it in, are you?”

“Of course not,” Clark said, bending Steve’s knees and putting a pillow under Steve’s hips. “Not _that,_ anyway.”

“Um, I don’t think shoving your finger in would feel very good, either.”

“No, don’t worry. Relax.”

Steve lay back, wondering what Clark had in mind as his face disappeared. Then the warm, wet, rough pad of Clark’s tongue retraced the same path the oiled finger had, and Steve nearly leapt off the bed.

“You okay?” Clark asked.

“Y-y-you’re going to, are, are you sure about this?”

“Sure that I want to see you go nuts? Absolutely.” And Clark’s face disappeared again.

Every swipe of Clark’s tongue sent electric shocks through Steve’s body. He’d never been touched there like this. Cripes, he’d never even heard of this! Even the wildest bedroom stories Howard and the Commandos told hadn’t prepared Steve for this. Who would have thought the phrase “kiss my ass” actually had basis in a real sexual act?! And Clark certainly did kiss, his lips pressing and massaging as eagerly as his tongue flicked and probed and _pushed inside, Jesus Christ,_ and Steve felt the saliva running down his crack, and he heard himself making noises he’d never made before, and this _had_ to be dirty and nasty and wrong, but Steve’s hands still hooked behind his knees and pulled them to his chest to give Clark more access because it felt so goddamned good, and when Clark sat up again Steve actually whined in protest.

Then Steve felt pressure again, and for one wild moment he thought it was Clark’s penis and his hips arched up to meet it. “Not yet,” Clark soothed, bringing Steve’s legs back down. “We’re still getting you warmed up.”

Warm?! He felt hotter than a frying pan in Hell! He couldn’t keep his hips still for wanting more stimulation. An _itch,_ Steve couldn’t think of any other word for it, had his hole twitching and clenching, made him stare at Clark like he was the only hope of relief. Clark’s slicked fingers pushed in, and Steve let out a wanton moan that would have embarrassed him if he weren’t beyond caring. But Clark didn’t do his usual gentle stroke in search of Steve’s prostate; instead, he twisted and spread his fingers like he wanted to loosen or open Steve up. Steve had to admit that felt a bit uncomfortable, but the pleasure soon washed over that.

Then the fingers were gone, and Steve watched Clark coat himself with lube. Looking at the size of him, and imagining what would come next, Steve’s nerves began to return. Clark leaned in to kiss Steve’s neck, his fingers tickling around Steve’s hole again without pressing in. Soon the frustration from the damned teasing outweighed Steve’s nerves, and the itch overrode everything else.

“Please, Clark,” Steve said, twisting his hips against Clark’s fingers, “come on.”

“Come on and what?” Clark whispered.

 _Goddammit, not now!_ Steve thought, but his body was burning up, and he was hard enough to hammer nails, and that _blasted itch_ that Clark started, and this was all his fault, and he’d damned well better –

“Fuck me,” Steve growled. Clark got a downright primal look on his face at that, so Steve just went all in. “I want your dick, alright? I want you to pound me through the goddamned mattress with it.” Steve pressed his point by grabbing Clark between the legs, and got a vindictive pleasure from Clark’s surprised groan. “So what the hell are you waiting for?!” Steve gave the head a savage twist, and Clark cried out, but not in pain. “Do you want my ass or not? Fuck me, dammit!” Steve demanded. “ _Now!_ ”

Clark growled, his eyes screwed shut, and Steve could have sworn he saw smoke leaking from the corners. Then Clark lifted and hooked Steve’s legs over his shoulders, lined himself up and, with a final reassuring squeeze to Steve’s hand, pushed in.

It burned, no two ways about it. Steve tried hard to not let it show on his face, but Clark still knew.

“It’s okay,” Clark whispered. “Just push out when I push in, not to be indelicate, but like you’re going to the bathroom, and it’ll feel better.”

Sounded disgusting, but at that point Steve would try anything to get back to the pleasure he’d felt earlier, so he did it, and found that Clark did slide in easier.

“I’m not going to move until you tell me to,” Clark said.

Steve felt stuffed, overwhelmed with sensation, and a bit silly with his legs dangling in the air, but he breathed through it, and eventually felt his muscles relax. He gave Clark a shaky nod. Clark began a very slow, almost miniscule rock of his hips, but Steve felt it as if Clark were ramming into him. His entire body seemed tuned in to Clark’s dick (and wasn’t it funny how his brain could just go to that blue language now?), every fraction of movement broadcast from the crown of Steve’s head right down to his toes. Clark pulled out further each time, rocking back in with just a bit more force than before. Steve remembered the tip about pushing out, and while the overfull feeling never subsided, the pain gradually did. Then Clark leaned back and cocked his hips at a different angle before pushing back in, and _whoa, right there!_

Clark smiled down at him. “Looks like I’ve found your prostate.”

Once Steve’s eyes rolled back front again, he registered three things: this had gone from very painful to very pleasurable quite fast, the itch had come roaring back, and Steve had a definite idea how he wanted to scratch it. “Lay down,” he told Clark.

“Huh?”

Steve lowered his legs, gingerly with Clark still inside him. “Do it.” Awkwardly Clark stretched his legs out from under himself and laid back, Steve now straddling him. Hooking his feet under Clark’s thighs and bracing his hands on Clark’s chest, Steve searched for that angle again. He couldn’t stop the full-body shudder when he found it, and started rocking his hips in earnest.

“Even when you’re the bottom, you have to be on top? You’re a bit of a control freak, you know that?” Clark teased.

“Shut up,” Steve panted.

“Yes, Captain.”

The penetration felt different in this position, Clark felt bigger somehow, but instead of feeling painful it made things more exciting. Steve churned and rolled his hips, gasping and groaning around every new sensation, but always coming back to that one incredible spot inside him. Clark moaned underneath him, his eyes blown wide looking at Steve, his hips meeting Steve’s every thrust.

“Jerk me off!” Steve ordered; he’d learned very early on he liked barking orders as much as Clark loved him talking dirty, so sometimes he meshed the two. As soon as Steve felt Clark’s hand wrap around his dick he reflexively clenched around Clark’s, and the combination sent Steve over the edge. Somewhere far away he heard himself scream, and had a dim awareness of the spasms rocking his body. All he really knew was the feeling racing and crashing through him, through his brain, his fingertips and toes, through every inch of his skin, making him fly right out of his body, higher and faster than Clark could ever go. Not long after, Clark dug the heels of his hands into his eyes as he orgasmed, his body arching until only his head and heels touched the bed.

Sometime after the room stopped spinning, Steve heard Clark whisper, “You remember what I said about how living things appear to me, the energy they give off and how I interpret it? Steve, you, just now, that was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever witnessed, like … being able to _see_ music, or hear the Mona Lisa. I’m grateful you allowed me to experience that, thank you. Are you okay?”

Steve’s butt ached. It burned when he moved. Evidence of Clark’s orgasm leaked from it. Even with his serum-fueled healing factor, if he could sit down tomorrow without wincing he’d be shocked. He also still felt like he was flying, like his skin was singing or something, from the first orgasm he’d ever had that didn’t just feel like it came from below his belt, but from his whole body.

“Feeling pretty swell, all things considered,” he said.

* * *

The baby looked so tiny – and Steve knew it was an obvious thing to think about a newborn, but as he balanced her entire body on his hand and forearm with plenty of room to spare, he couldn’t find a better word.

Pete, for once, didn’t have much to say. He spent most of his time either gazing at his wife with something close to awe, or standing over his new daughter’s bassinet with a similar expression. When Clark asked how he was doing, Pete could only give him a tired smile that still lit up his entire face.

Lana, on the other hand, spent her waking hours talking almost nonstop about little Chloe: midnight feedings, when the bellybutton would fall off, telling the difference between a hungry cry and a diaper change cry, the college fund that only had a hundred dollars in it and how Lana planned to add another hundred every month. Steve listened politely, but sent a pointed look Clark’s way as soon as Lana paused for breath.

“Lana,” Clark began, “there’s another reason why I’m here.”

Steve handed Chloe back to her father and went over to Clark, taking his hand.

“You’re getting married!” Pete guessed, his usual volume returning.

“Uh, no,” Clark said, shooting a nervous look at Steve, who only shrugged. Stark had already thrown out hints about the wedding he could afford to throw them. Steve supposed that was just the world he lived in now: a cell phone in every back pocket, invasions from outer space, costumed superheroes defending the planet, and men in matching white tuxedos. He glanced at Clark, and decided this new world ain’t so bad.

Clark took a deep breath before trying again. “The two of you know I, um, have these powers, but we’ve, uh, never really gotten into why I have them.”

Lana and Pete sat up straighter. “Yeah,” Pete said carefully, “you’ve never said, even when I wanted you to.”

“And I never asked,” Lana admitted, “I guess a part of me always felt like I got enough bad news that night.” She gave Clark a chagrined smile. Steve got the impression these three had exchanged enough apologies to last a lifetime. Hopefully their friendship had healed enough to survive the next bombshell.

“I know you’ve always assumed it was some accident or experiment,” Clark began. “There’s even been rumors of people with extraordinary genetic mutations across the world. But it’s not that, it’s not anything like that, and it’s not fair to either of you to keep hiding the truth. Lana, Pete,” Clark began, after a calming breath and a reassuring squeeze from Steve’s hand, “there’s something I have to tell you …”

* * *

In early April, in the skies over Miami, a space shuttle piggybacking its launch on a Boeing 777 suffered a malfunction, and began to accelerate while still attached to its jet plane escort. With the shuttle unable to detach and the plane out of control, the lives of the passengers, astronauts, and anyone in the vicinity of the imminent crash were in grave danger. Suddenly, a man in a blue costume with a red cape flew in, separated the shuttle with a laser blast from his eyes, and sent the craft safely spaceward. The damaged host jet continued its freefall earthward, directly over Marlins Park. The flying man, after attempting to stop the plane by its wing until they both snapped off into the Atlantic, dove in front of the Boeing, pushed against its nose, and slowed the aircraft down until he could land it gently in the middle of the stadium. The stunned baseball players, spectators, and press could only look on as the man floated to the plane, detached the door, and went inside to talk to the passengers. According to reports, he addressed one in particular: “By the way, Miss Lane, I’ve been meaning to thank you for the name you gave me. I like it.”

Superman had arrived. And miles away in New York, Lana pointed out Chloe’s uncle on the TV screen, SHIELD prepared to deny any prior knowledge of this individual, the Avengers debated expanding their ranks to include Superman … and Steve hid a smirk behind his hand as the reports flooded in, thinking of all the ways he’d show Clark later just how proud he was.

The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am really sorry to say goodbye to this story. The idea of dropping my all-time favorite superhero into those fantastic movies has knocked around in my head for a while now. I’d also thought about slashing Clark with Steve since Supes’s books and Cap’s movies showed me how, for a superpowered extraterrestrial refugee and a time-displaced war veteran, they’re quite like-minded people. Envisioning Chris Evans and Henry Cavill getting it on didn’t hurt, either. ;)
> 
> A great series convinced me to try writing this, Winterstar’s _Kent Rogers Cycle._ Her SuperCap fic did something mine didn’t, successfully meshed all the recent DC and Marvel movies into one universe. Carpelucem’s little fic _Sunflowers_ also did that, and proved just how cute and sweet Clark and Steve could be together. If you liked mine, you might want to check those out.
> 
> I want to thank everyone who read this, particularly those willing to come back every week looking for the next installment. You don’t know how you kept me going, especially since this is a relatively rare pairing. Believe me, every hit, kudo, bookmark and comment was deeply appreciated.
> 
> A couple of people have requested a sequel, and I’m game, but I could use a couple of suggestions to get the plot bunnies hopping. So if you have any ideas for what you’d like to see, please leave a comment. And again, thank you SO much for reading!
> 
>  _The Kent Rogers Cycle:_ https://archiveofourown.org/series/264160
> 
>  _Sunflowers:_ https://archiveofourown.org/works/1076069


End file.
